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TTP's Cooper & Family Living Well in Mexico.

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Paul J. Berg

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Aug 28, 2003, 10:16:29 PM8/28/03

From (Topeka) Capital-Journal (08/17/03)

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico -- In this romantic getaway by the sea is a
residence where a Topeka man has distanced himself from legal
entanglements in Kansas.

Haunted by countless court proceedings involving Renaissance, The Tax
People, Michael Cooper and his wife, Mary, and their two children,
Clint, 13, and Colby, 11, recently moved to Puerto Vallarta, a tourist
mecca for Americans and Canadians.

Cooper had been jailed for contempt of court in May for not disclosing
company assets, but Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson let
him out of jail to look for money in Mexico. After seizing his home and
issuing him a multi-million dollar fine, the judge lifted the warrant
for his arrest giving Cooper the option to come and go as he pleases.
However, a federal case is still pending against him and Renaissance.

The Coopers could have leased their Topeka home from the state, but
chose to give it up to live in Puerto Vallarta.

The tourist destination of Puerto Vallarta nestles in Banderas Bay on
the western coast of Mexico.

"The loss was rather infinitesimal compared to the fact that our family
is now together again, and that is priceless," Mary Cooper recently
wrote in a lengthy e-mail from Mexico.

In Puerto Vallarta, the Coopers are believed to be living in a
condominium complex located among high-priced hotels and shopping areas
in the ritzy Plaza Las Glorias here. Cooper's condo is just a short walk
from the beach and a short drive from the mountains and jungles
surrounding Puerto Vallarta. Cooper has been coming to Mexico for
several years and speaks Spanish. Mary Cooper insists they are living in
Puerto Vallarta on their own money, not Renaissance's money.

"He is going to live the high life. He's got a couple of million dollars
stashed somewhere," said James "Skeet" Butler, of Livermore, Calif., who
got involved with Cooper and Renaissance, The Tax People in 1999. Butler
and his wife Diane lost about $25,000 getting involved in the company,
which was ruled a pyramid scheme. Like many who took advice from
Renaissance, the Bakers owed back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

Cooper isn't alone in his escape to Mexico. From cowboy desperados in
the late 1800s to the recent events surrounding Max Factor heir Andrew
Luster, Americans with legal problems have a long history of seeking
refuge south of the border. By being in Mexico, Cooper also is able to
maintain some distance from the U.S. federal government, which seized $9
million from Renaissance three years ago but has not filed any criminal
charges against him.

Living in Mexico as an expatriate is quite a change for Cooper. He was
raised in Topeka, graduated in 1972 from Seaman High School and served
in the U.S. Marines.

"Being a Marine taught me that sometimes you don't get to choose,"
Cooper told The Capital-Journal in early 2001. "You just have to brave
it through."

His first wife, Debra Lee Martin with whom he had two children,
Christa Lee and Robert Michael died in 1979 when a trailer he was
welding fell on her. He later married Mary, his current wife, and had
two more children. Cooper got involved in several business ventures and
had his share of financial failures, having declared bankruptcy in the
1980s.

Of all the business ventures he started, nothing took off like
Renaissance, TTP. Starting in 1995, the company attracted tens of
thousands of people seeking tax advice. Mary Cooper said Renaissance
served 85,000 customers. Many worked as independent marketing agents
(IMAs) for the company. As marketing agents signed up new recruits, they
received income from the business. Cooper wanted the business to become
larger than H & R Block.

But in fall 2000, federal agents raided the former headquarters at S.W.
10th and Gage (Topeka, KS) and seized nearly $9 million in cash and
assets. Then in May 2001, Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson
ruled that Renaissance was running an illegal pyramid scheme, forcing
Cooper to shut down the company and defend himself.

In May, Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson held Cooper in
contempt of court for failing to account for Renaissance's assets in
Mexico. Cooper was jailed for 13 days until Anderson released him and
allowed him to go to Mexico with his wife, Mary, his attorney, Jerold
Berger, and Robert Baer, an attorney who is the court receiver in the
case.

They were searching for money from the sale of real estate assets that
had belonged to Renaissance. The assets included two resort properties
in Puerto Vallarta -- a condo building called Renaissance Resort and a
beach home called Casa Diamante. The properties were used to provide
vacation incentives for company employees.

Cooper said he had sold the properties to Larry Price for $2 million in
February 2001, but prosecutors thought that was a sham transaction. The
house later was sold for $1.75 million. Prosecutors believed Cooper may
have reaped profits from the sale, but Cooper hasn't disclosed the
whereabouts of the money.

Michael Cooper has been defending himself against prosecutors for nearly
three years.

Because Cooper failed to return from Mexico by the May 30 deadline,
Anderson ordered Cooper's Topeka home seized, fined him and his company
$13.2 million, and issued an arrest warrant for Cooper.
The judge later issued a final judgment against Cooper and his company,
requiring the payment of $13.6 million in consumer damages and $278,059
in attorney fees, costs and investigative expenses.

In early July, the judge lifted the warrant, freeing Cooper to return to
Topeka without risk of arrest. However, the possibility remains that
federal charges could yet be leveled against him.

The Coopers did not confirm that they were living in the Puerto Vallarta
condos, formerly called the Renaissance Resort. Cooper wouldn't submit
to an interview, but his wife wrote an eight-page e-mail to The (Topeka)
Capital-Journal.

An Internet search for Jose Clemente Orozco 501, which is the address of
the building that Renaissance owned during the investigation, revealed
an Internet Web site. The site says in Spanish that anyone interested in
renting or buying an apartment or house in Puerto Vallarta can fill out
an online application form. Other than that, the site only gives the
location of the condos, a phone number and an e-mail address.

After calling the phone number on July 28, a woman answered in Spanish.
She clearly knew Cooper and said he was out of town. Upon learning that
the caller was a reporter, she refused to give any more information
about Cooper's whereabouts or about the condos.

The condo is a five-story orange building that sits next to a travel
agency and across the street from a large white building of condos.
Beyond those condos is the ocean. The condo complex has a dozen
apartments and a courtyard with a small swimming pool and several tall
palm trees that can be seen rising above the courtyard walls from the
parking lot next door. The building appears to be in good condition and
that the owner may be renovating it. At one point during the afternoon
on July 28, two workers arrived in a truck loaded with what appeared to
be new windows and other items for the condos.

The Coopers have emptied their house in Topeka. This was bittersweet for
them because they bought the land in 1986, renovated a barn on the
property and lived in the barn until they finished building their house
in 1990.

"There were many happy memories of life in this home," Mary wrote.
"Standing on our porch witnessing the thunderstorms roll in from the
west; burning the acreage every spring and observing the black soot as
it evolved into lush greenery; watching our horses and dogs sprint
through the pasture; and smiling while our boys waded through the creek
hunting crawdads. All of this brought Mike and I immense comfort, peace
and joy."

As they eliminated stuff from their house, Michael Cooper's brother, Ed
Cooper, placed a classified advertisement in the July 26 Topeka
Capital-Journal announcing a "huge tool and equipment sale." Among the
dirt bikes, table saws, trailers, welders, generators, guns, antiques,
dressers and beds was a 1981 Nissan 280 ZX for sale.

Rex Beasley, deputy attorney general, later obtained a restraining order
from Judge Anderson to stop the Coopers from selling items that belonged
to Cooper or Renaissaince.

When Ed Cooper was asked if he was selling Michael Cooper's stuff, he
responded, "What difference does it make?" He later said, "I've never
said it was his property." He complained about the newspaper's coverage
of his brother and added that he didn't want to be interviewed.

The appeal of Puerto Vallarta is obvious. With vast beaches scattered
around the bay, eco-tours in the nearby mountains and jungles, a wild
night life, and a beautiful old downtown with a colonial feel common to
many Mexican towns, the city has become an international resort, rivaled
in Mexico only by places like Cancun and Acapulco.

The city has countless restaurants, bars and nightclubs, at all price
ranges, many of which line the malecün, the wide boardwalk that runs
along much of the waterfront. Like in many Mexican port cities, the
malecün is a center of city life.
At night, it is packed as thousands of people mill around, both tourists
and locals. Street performers, food venders and artisans keep the
malecün entertaining, lively and interesting.

For Americans escaping to the land of the Aztecs, American-style resorts
like Puerto Vallarta make living and integration easy.

Although many people don't speak English in Puerto Vallarta, most taxi
drivers or store clerks speak enough English for communication. Many
signs and menus are in English, and a large expatriate community thrives
here.

According to Adalberto Hernandez Ponce, director of tourism for Puerto
Vallarta, about 5,000 to 5,500 non-Mexicans call Puerto Vallarta home.
About 3,500 of them are Americans, 1,500 are Canadians, and the rest are
of various nationalities.

With so many foreigners living here, and with planes full of foreign
tourists coming and going daily, an American could easily disappear in
Puerto Vallarta, Hernandez said.

Once that person is here, he said, detection is very unlikely, as long
as the foreigner doesn't get into trouble with the local police.

"They feel that it's a safe place for them," Hernandez said.

Getting in isn't that difficult either, Hernandez said. The Mexican
immigration office performs background checks on those applying for
visas and cooperates with the U.S. government to prevent criminals
entering Mexico. But in a resort town like Puerto Vallarta, these people
aren't that easy to detect, he said.

He said police and immigration officials have been working more closely
together lately to ensure people like Andrew Luster, the Max Factor
cosmetics heir who ran to Mexico earlier this year shortly before being
convicted of rape, are deterred.

Luster was captured in June by an American bounty hunter who got into
legal trouble himself, because bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico. But
if the bounty hunter, Duane "Dog" Chapman, hadn't captured Luster, local
police probably wouldn't ever have known to look for the convicted
rapist in Puerto Vallarta, Hernandez said.
"This man was here unfortunately in Puerto Vallarta, and no one realized
it," Hernandez said. "If not for the situation with the bounty hunters,
he would have been here and no one would have known."

The Luster case is a rarity, though, he said. Most foreigners living in
Puerto Vallarta are legal residents who either work or are retired. In
his nine years in Puerto Vallarta, Hernandez said, he has never seen
another high-profile arrest like that of Luster.

Most of the foreigners don't cause problems, he said, and those who do
usually are just teenaged tourists who go to the clubs and drink a
little more than they should.

While federal authorities decide how to move forward on their case
against Cooper, he and his family are adjusting to life in Puerto
Vallarta.

The family purchased several Spanish tutorial books and audio tapes
before they left the United States and have been teaching themselves the
native language with the support of some friends who are fluent in
Spanish.

"Our sons will attend school here later this month, which we believe
will be a definite advantage in expanding their educational
experiences," Mary wrote. "America is a wonderful country and so is
Mexico. There are both advantages and disadvantages to living in either
country. Mike and I appreciate and respect the Mexican culture and
believe that adapting to a life here will be a challenging, yet joyful
adventure."

"With the warrant from the contempt citation lifted, we did not have to
leave Topeka," Mary wrote. "But after giving Topeka and Kansas our
hearts and souls for many years, we have now chosen to leave Topeka. And
the greatest gift we received was that our leaving was joined with the
selfless support of many loyal friends and family whose love and
compassion we will always treasure. Mike and I are embarking on a new
life adventure that gives all of us the opportunity to grow in
knowledge, strength and love."

Source and photo of condo at
<http://www.cjonline.com/stories/081703/bus_cooper.shtml>