Neither an Officer, Nor a Gentleman
Man posed as Naval officer and had ten wives and fiancees.
Aug. 14, 2007— -- ABC News has been following the story of Eric Cooper's many lives and wives since April 2005. Posing as a Navy lieutenant, Cooper left behind a trail of broken hearts, ex-wives and abandoned children. He charged into their lives like a knight in shining armor, claiming to be a Navy officer and a fighter pilot with a business degree, and with big plans for their futures. Women found his charms and uniform irresistible.
In August 2006, Cooper faced the long arm of the law after he was charged with tampering with a governmental document.
Like Richard Gere's character from "An Officer and a Gentleman," Cooper seemed like every woman's dream. Over a 10-year period, at least ten women from the Houston area were married or engaged to him. Plus, he fathered four children with some of them. Each woman said she was oblivious to his past relationships, and each was convinced she was his one true love.
Krystal Weber, 21, was in her last year of nursing school when Cooper, then 28, swept her off her feet on their very first date.
"He was telling me all about what he did and how he has all the money he inherited from his mom when she died, a trust fund he inherited," she said. Weber said Cooper also told her he was a Navy pilot who was second-in-command in Houston and had an MBA degree.
The young woman's parents, Jack and Lynn Weber, also thought Cooper was a special young man.
"I was very impressed. He was very well-mannered, very clean-cut. He made a little speech saying that his life up to that point had been incomplete and that Krystal completed his whole life -- that she was the final piece of his puzzle," Lynn Weber recalled.
The relationship progressed rapidly, and Cooper pressed Weber to marry him, she said. The couple married during a weekend trip to Las Vegas, shocking Weber's parents.
But Weber and her family didn't know that Cooper had had a lot of practice getting women to say yes. He had been married to at least six women before her.
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