Defense Claims Cooperman ‘Fantasy’ : Prosecutor Says Lam Statement, Physical Evidence Do Not Agree

Cal State Fullerton physics professor Edward Lee Cooperman’s “fantasy world” of political intrigue created the circumstances that led to his own “accidental” death, the attorney for 21-year-old Minh Van Lam claimed in his opening statement at Lam’s trial Monday.

Lam, a Vietnamese refugee and former student of Cooperman, is being tried for murder in the professor’s Oct. 13, 1984, death in his sixth-floor Science Building office. Cooperman was shot once through the neck with a .25-caliber pistol.

Jury Was Selected Quickly

The shooting has drawn international attention because Cooperman was widely known for his scientific and humanitarian efforts in aiding Vietnam. His family and friends believe that he was a victim of a right-wing assassination plot because of his ties to the Communist government in Vietnam. Lam’s attorneys have gained considerable media coverage by alleging that Cooperman was involved in illegal activities about which his friends were unaware.

Lam’s trial began last week with the selection of a seven-woman, five-man jury in just three hours. Opening statements and the first testimony came Monday morning.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen’s statement was brief. He told the jury that the physical evidence “does not comport” with Lam’s statement to police that he shot the professor by accident when Cooperman grabbed his arm to show him how to aim the gun.

Jensen offered no explanation as to a possible motive for the slaying.

‘Big Fish in a Small Pond’

Jensen had very little to say about Cooperman. But defense attorney Alan May of Santa Ana made Cooperman’s Vietnam connections central to his opening statement.

Ever since Lam’s arraignment on Oct. 21, May has said that the defense would show it was Cooperman’s state of mind--not Lam’s--that lay behind the mysterious shooting.

May told the jury Monday that “Dr. Cooperman was caught up in an ego game of being a big fish in a small pond.”

Cooperman established the U.S. Committee for Scientific Cooperation with Vietnam in 1979 and was also actively involved in aiding the Vietnamese through grants from UNESCO. Although he had full-time teaching duties at Cal State Fullerton, his work with the Vietnamese required at least one and sometimes two trips to Vietnam each year.

Cooperman’s family and friends say the professor told them that he had received death threats from right-wing Vietnamese opposed to the present regime in Vietnam with which Cooperman was friendly. Those threats increased, they said, after Cooperman returned last July from his latest trip to Vietnam.

Claims Cooperman Switched Computers

But May told the jury that Cooperman was worried that someone might “unmask” some of his clandestine activities. For example, May claims the evidence will show that Cooperman may have misappropriated about $300,000 from his own foundation, and that he sent illegal computer and nuclear technology to Vietnam.

May also claims he can show that Vietnamese officials were upset with Cooperman because he sent them a cheaper brand of computers in place of the Apple computers he had promised them.

Cooperman’s family and friends say they don’t believe any of May’s allegations. But even if any of it is true, they contend, it is irrelevant. As Anthony Russo, the former Pentagon Papers case co-defendant who was a close friend of Cooperman, has observed, “What the hell has that got to do with the shooting?”

May told the jurors Monday that Cooperman’s political fears prompted him to accumulate a small arsenal of weapons. (The Fullerton police say two .38-caliber pistols found in Cooperman’s office were registered to him. Lam claims that the .25-caliber pistol and a .45-caliber handgun found in Lam’s bedroom by police also belonged to the professor.)

Tied in with the weapons, May told the jury, was Cooperman’s need to surround himself with young Asian males in black leather jackets. Cooperman had bought such a jacket for Lam and told him to wear it to the office on the day of the shooting, May contended.

Pretrial Theory Not Told to Jury

The jackets and the guns, May said, were a continuation of Cooperman’s “fantasy world” that existed beyond his teaching duties. And it was this fantasy world, May alleged, that led to the gun demonstration on Oct. 13 that led to the shooting.

May did not share with the jurors a theory he raised publicly late last year that Cooperman was a homosexual, nor did he say the evidence would show that Cooperman used Lam as an instrument of his own suicide. May had advanced both theories as pretrial proceedings unfolded, prompting Cooperman’s family and friends to accuse him of character assassination.

Prosecutor Jensen’s opening statement revealed very few details of his case.

He said he would present evidence to show that the downward, right-to-left angle the bullet traveled was not consistent with the account of the accident given by Lam to police in a videotaped re-enactment of the shooting. Jensen also said the scattered papers in the office and the blood on opposite walls, the desk and the telephone conflicted with the accident story.

Says Defendant Went to Movie

Jensen also told the jury that one of the police officers would testify she offered Lam some privacy and a place to cry, but Lam declined. Indeed, later in the day, campus police Sgt. Teddy Rasmussen testified that when she offered Lam the use of a classroom to be alone for a few minutes, Lam answered: “No, I don’t have anything to cry about.”

Jensen also described for the jury how Lam went to the movie “Purple Rain” with a girlfriend after the shooting, then came back to Cooperman’s office and placed the gun in Cooperman’s left hand (the professor was left-handed) before calling campus police at 3:09 p.m., more than three hours after the shooting, to tell them he had found Cooperman’s body.

Also, Jensen said, Lam didn’t admit his involvement until several hours later, when a police officer told him it might help him if he told the truth.

Defense Scenario

May had rebuttals for most of Jensen’s statements.

May acted out his own scenario for the jury, alleging that the blood was widely scattered because the victim got up from the floor twice in an attempt to get help or reach the telephone. May also said that Lam was raised to believe that he was not supposed to cry during difficult times.

May said that Lam left and went to the movies because he panicked, but pointed out that he returned and that it was Lam who called police. He did not admit his involvement at first, May said, because Lam feared the very thing that finally happened: After he told police it was an accident, he was arrested.

Lam, a thin, wiry man at 5 feet, 7 inches, speaks good English, but listened to the opening statements and testimony Monday through a Vietnamese interpreter. He wore a white shirt that was too big for him, black pants and tan shoes.

Despite the widespread interest in the case, there were very few people in Judge Richard J. Beacom’s courtroom when testimony began Monday morning. Beacom allowed just one television camera and two still photographers in the courtroom.

Also, May was much more subdued outside the courtroom Monday than he was at the preliminary hearing last November, when he held numerous impromptu press conferences.

Jensen’s first witnesses Monday were a parade of police officers and Fire Department paramedics who came to the campus office after Lam called the police at 3:09 p.m. the day of the shooting.

Jensen said he expects his case to take about two weeks.