Owner Cooper Long a Fixture in O.C. Circles

When politically connected investor William E. Cooper bought former Sen. John Seymour’s real estate brokerage in 1981, Cooper was riding high.

“Orange County’s growth and inflation has made a lot of people wealthy,” Cooper said at the time. “Certainly, John and I and others rode that surge.”

More than a decade later, fortunes have changed for Cooper. The brokerage faltered, Seymour no longer speaks to him, his pension management firm has filed for bankruptcy, his sprawling Villa Park mansion is for sale, and Friday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission froze all his assets.

Federal investigators alleged Friday that Cooper’s Irvine pension firm, First Pension Corp., may have lost or misappropriated as much as $124 million in clients’ funds. Cooper has been unavailable for comment, but his lawyer said he was cooperating with federal authorities.

Cooper, 50, who grew up in Southern California, has been a fixture in Orange County business, social and political circles for the past 20 years. He was a member of the GOP’s Lincoln Club and one of the county’s biggest campaign contributors at one time. He was a big booster of Seymour, former Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth and others. And last year, he was the driving force behind an unsuccessful effort to bring a card club and casino to Anaheim.

Politics isn’t the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Cooper’s only passion. The bearded outdoorsman is an avid skier and camper, friends said. In his second marriage, he wedded Terri in the mid-1980s. They have one son, Paden.

On Friday, efforts to contact Cooper at several of his businesses and at home were unsuccessful. The windows were covered at the couple’s $700,000-plus, three-bedroom, English-style home in Villa Park’s exclusive Sommerset neighborhood. Sticking above a wrought iron fence leading to Cooper’s front door was a red, white and blue sign that warned: “Private Property, No Trespassing.” Underneath that, a second sign stated: “High Voltage.”

Terri Cooper served on the board of directors for the Orangewood Children’s Home until her resignation last month. Supervisor William G. Steiner, a former Orangewood executive director, said she told board members that the family was moving to Santa Barbara. St. Joseph’s Hospital was another beneficiary of the Coopers’ support.

Seymour, the former U.S. senator who now heads the state housing finance agency, said he counted Cooper among his supporters until they fell out over business finances when Cooper failed to make required payments on the Anaheim brokerage business.

Seymour said that selling his brokerage to Cooper cost him “considerable sums” and that he has not spoken with Cooper since.

Still, he recently described Cooper as “a good Republican” who played a low-key role in numerous local campaigns. “He was a regular at political fund-raisers but he wasn’t a real forthcoming or vocal kind of guy,” said Seymour, who began his political career as mayor of Anaheim.

Many recall Cooper’s financial support of then-County Supervisor Roth in a bitter 1986 campaign against former Orange Councilman Jim Beam. That year, Cooper provided Roth more than $19,000 in contributions and loans to help him win election. Roth, who was not available for comment Friday, resigned his office last year just before he pleaded guilty to certain state ethics violations.

Real estate was the basis of Cooper’s fortune. He started in the mortgage business when he was only 18 as a loan officer trainee in 1961. He later worked for Union Home Loan as a loan officer and branch manager and then moved to Capital Home Loan, working there in various capacities and rising to general manager before he left in 1974.

In the late 1970s, Cooper formed Continental Home Loan, a loan brokerage, which later became a subsidiary of another Cooper company, First Diversified Financial Services. It was then that Cooper bought Seymour’s real estate brokerage.

Things looked good for Cooper until 1984, when he ran into trouble after $577,850 was diverted from a trust fund, L.B. Mortgage Servicing Co., according to the California Department of Real Estate. Cooper’s real estate license was revoked and then reinstated with restrictions for negligence and failing to supervise the company. The restrictions were lifted in 1988.

Cooper’s career appears to have progressed without incident since that episode--until last month.

On April 5, First Pension President Valerie Jensen abruptly resigned and Cooper replaced her. Although he had rarely been seen around the company’s Irvine headquarters until then, former employees say Cooper helped start the company in 1980.

Cooper also held interests in several limited partnerships, including Euclid-Ball ASC Ltd., which financed construction of surgical centers.

Principals of that venture once included Glen Belka, a former tax law specialist who served as president of the venture. When contacted at his San Bernardino home Friday, Belka said he hasn’t spoken to Cooper in six years.

“Cooper purchased all my interest, and I was terminated in 1985,” Belka said. “All I know about Cooper is that he ran everything, he did everything and he was president of everything. Do I wish I’d never met him? The answer is yes.”

Late last year, Cooper and business partner Robert E. Lindley were financial backers of an unsuccessful proposal to bring a card club to Anaheim. The two men were active in forming the investment group called Southland Entertainment Properties Inc., which headed the project. But City Council members, several of whom received campaign donations from Cooper, rejected the proposal.

“He’s been around the Anaheim and Orange County business scene for quite a while. He’s sharp, focused and very businesslike,” said Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, who received $1,800 in campaign contributions from Cooper from 1989-92. “Not at all pushy. . . . He’s low key and always seemed to have done his homework.”

Times staff writers Kevin Johnson, Matt Lait and James M. Gomez contributed to this report.