Accountants are often stereotyped as the milquetoast personification of white-collar America. But don’t tell that to Ernie Cooper.
Cooper is a retired FBI special agent who’s gone from auditing La Cosa Nostra to running the forensic accounting practice and the new downtown L.A. office of Glendora accounting firm Vicenti Lloyd & Stutzman.
Companies hire Cooper and his team to investigate alleged fraud and corruption happening within their ranks. Lately, Cooper’s also been leading training sessions and seminars designed to help companies avoid getting caught up in such problems to begin with. And that’s been one of VLS’ fastest-growing lines of work, largely because of a tighter focus on reporting and compliance since the financial crisis and a rebounding economy that’s put more cash in corporate coffers.
“A few years ago, a lot of organizations weren’t spending money on the preventive stuff,” Cooper said. “But we’ve seen a change with the economy picking up.”
For clients in the market for such services, Cooper said his FBI background – and accompanying stories – is a big draw.
He recalls a presentation he gave to a group of corporate human resources professionals in which he pointed out some red flags of fraud. An attendee later gave him a call, saying she thought she had discovered fraud at her company. The company hired VLS and Cooper held a meeting with the whistleblower and other members of management, including the chief executive, to lay out the case and come up with next steps. The boss had other ideas.
“He said, ‘Hey, Ernie, that’s great but what are the chances that you and I can go out and arrest this SOB tonight?’” Cooper said. “He was obviously kidding – but he wasn’t.”
While there’s long been a market niche for accounting firms that specialize in investigating fraud, what’s new is companies taking a more proactive approach and engaging VLS to run fraud-prevention seminars. That’s given VLS the opportunity to use Cooper’s special-agent skills – and special-agent personality – to help clients, generate business and raise more awareness of the firm.
Blue blood
Cooper, 62, grew up in Pico Rivera, went to college and law school at Cal State University Fullerton and landed a job at a predecessor of PricewaterhouseCoopers. But he’s an adrenaline junkie with a family tradition of law enforcement work, so he decided to take a flier and apply to the FBI.
His first posting was investigating bank robberies in 1980s Los Angeles – then the bank robbery capital of the world. He soon moved on to a small office in East Texas, where he dove into the finances of the New Orleans branch of La Cosa Nostra.
“That was really my first bureau experience using forensic accounting techniques,” Cooper said. “That’s when I really started to get a feel for white-collar crime and some of the sophisticated investigation techniques.”
Next, he helped secure 16 guilty pleas and one conviction from the rampant fraud happening at Santa Rosa’s Centennial Savings & Loan. That experience helped him decide that when he retired – or in FBI parlance, reached his “kiss-my-ass” date – he wanted to make his next career in forensic accounting and financial fraud investigations.
Cooper’s FBI training often comes in handy when investigating possible fraud.
“Because of my background, I can go in there and really work and assess what their needs are,” he said. “We put together an investigative plan. Very similar to the type of thing we did with the FBI.”
When Cooper retired from the FBI in 2005, he became a director at the L.A. office of accounting giant KPMG. There, he led a team investigating a multinational corporation’s alleged corruption in Medellín, Colombia, once one of the most violent cities in the world.
“How cool is that!” he reminisced.
But despite all the fun he had hunting criminals in South America, Cooper had grown travel weary and wanted to settle down. He discovered VLS when he read an article in a Whittier newspaper about the firm’s co-managing partner, Linda Saddlemire, who was also a certified fraud examiner.
Cooper gave her a cold call just to introduce himself as another local accountant working in the same field. They quickly found opportunities to work together, with VLS bringing on Cooper as a consultant. When Cooper’s wife, also an FBI agent, retired in 2013, Cooper joined VLS as a partner.
“One of our visions was really to take that forensic fraud group to the next level,” he said.
The 62-year-old firm now has 76 employees across both offices, making it Los Angeles County’s 23rd largest. The goal is to get to 100 within two years, Cooper said.
The forensic services group has five dedicated employees, but Cooper can pull accountants from other practice areas. That includes the firm’s commercial business team, a crew headed by Pete Gautreau, a VLS partner who moonlights as a football referee in the Big 12 Conference.
And Cooper’s training seminars continue to score big with VLS’ clients.
“I give them FBI stories. That’s what they really like,” he said.
