Skyy Mims' attorney raises questions about investigator

For weeks, Skyy Mims' mother asked Carla Marable to meet with her private investigator.

Marable, Mims' Michigan-based attorney in her pending Whitfield County, Ga., murder case, wasn't comfortable with the idea. She usually works with investigators she already knows, former law enforcement officers she can trust.

She had never heard of the investigator, who called himself Larry Cooper, but he had endeared himself to Mims' mother, Ylet Noelle Patterson.

The arrest of Mims, a 21-year-old aspiring rapper, dancer, model and fashion designer from Detroit, gained national media attention in March. Six months later, she remains in the Whitfield County Jail without bond, awaiting trial.

But this case may result in another arrest, Marable said. She plans to turn Cooper in for impersonating a law enforcement officer and for stealing from Mims' family. It is unclear how much money they paid him, though Marable estimates he received about $1,500.

After Mims' arrest in the March slaying of Dalton convenience store clerk Dahyabhi Kalidas Chaudhari, Cooper reached out to Patterson on Facebook. He apparently told Patterson he could set her daughter free using investigative techniques honed through years of working for the government.

He also told Patterson he'd been calling Marable, begging the attorney to let him help. He said she never responded.

Marable said this was a lie, that he never reached out to her. She called Cooper. She told him they needed to meet.

On a Sunday afternoon in July, Marable and Cooper sat together at a Panera Bread outside of Detroit. She asked for his credentials. He told her he had just retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation after working on a drug task force in Macomb County, Mich., for 20 years.

photo Slaying suspect Skyy Mims approaches the podium in a Whitfield County court Monday afternoon.

Marable said he also told her he was working on a secret government operation, which explained why there was little information about him on the Internet. But almost immediately, Marable said, Cooper's tongue betrayed him.

"There's certain lingo law enforcement use," she said. "He wasn't using that lingo. Normally you have your own cases to talk about. He kept talking about the O.J. Simpson trial. He kept talking about the cops setting Skyy up because they're racist. He was talking about Mark Fuhrman [an investigator in Simpson's 1995 murder trial]."

Marable said Cooper told the family he had law enforcement connections in Dalton. He said he had enough evidence to convince the sheriff's office to let Mims walk out of jail a free woman.

"There was no way in the world he was going to go to Dalton, find the right person, and Dalton police were going to drop the case," Marable said. "That would be like a movie."

When Mims' cousin, Candace Patterson, met a Dalton woman online who claimed to have information about the slaying, Cooper told the family he would meet with her. Marable said Cooper told the family he flew to Dalton and took statements from the woman.

But on Aug. 25, when Marable was in Whitfield County for Mims' arraignment, she also met with the alleged witness. The woman told Marable she'd never met Cooper.

Marable said she sent Cooper a string of angry text messages. If you're going to lie, she told him, your lies better make sense.

Cooper declined to comment for this report, though he agreed to interviews several times in the past two weeks. He answered the phone only once, saying he had to call back later but promising to deliver "the full story" about Marable.

Patterson also did not return calls seeking comment for this article. But on July 15, she told the Times Free Press that Cooper had important information about the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office's investigation into Mims.

When a reporter contacted him then, Cooper texted back, "In order for interviews to be done the family is asking for all Paris [sic] to make a donation to her legal fund."

According to an online database on the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs website, nobody in the state with the last name Cooper has a professional investigator license. Jeannie Vogel, a spokeswoman for the state government, said operating without a license could lead to up to four years in prison or a $5,000 fine.

Cooper's FBI credentials also are unclear. A spokesman for the FBI's Detroit office could not say Friday afternoon whether a man with the name Larry Cooper ever worked for the bureau.

But Marable says she is positive: Cooper is not legitimate.

"He's not FBI," she said. "Nobody really knows where he came from or anything. It's sad because he took advantage of a family in need. ... He's a strict con artist."

Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6476.

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