Brad Gregg

Former Oklahoman, Tulsa World and Oklahoma Gazette reporter Scott Cooper recently resigned his position as
treasurer-secretary of the Oklahoma Pro Chapter of the Society of
Professional Journalists after a preliminary review of SPJ’s bank
account showed $40,000 in unauthorized withdrawals, according to an SPJ
media release.

Cooper,
who founded the online oklegalnews.com and contributed to The Lost Ogle
website, wrote in an email to SPJ President M. Scott Carter that he had
withdrawn $18,650 from the SPJ account for his personal use by writing
checks to himself, according to a story in This Land Press.

The money was used to gamble at a casino or cover gambling expenses, according to emails obtained by This Land. While
Cooper has not been charged with a crime in the matter, he acknowledged
in a letter to Carter that “my journalism career is over.”

That might well be true: a final written fact published as punctuation to what had been a long and respectable career.

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