WATCH: Jacqueline Kent Cooke In Drunken Brawl With Jewish Lawyer
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Ari Feldman January 5, 2018
On New Year’s Eve, a drunken heiress to her billionaire, NFL owner father’s fortune, went to pick up her jacket from coat check. To her surprise, Jacqueline Kent Cooke found the Haberkorn family collecting their coats. So she decided to say something.
“Hurry up Jew,” she said, according to the Matt Haberkorn, a San Francisco lawyer.
When asked what she said, Cooke allegedly added, “Hurry up, Jew. I got places to be.” Cooke’s boyfriend added, “Happy bat mitzvah, girls,” to Haberkorn’s daughters.
The anti-Semitic gibes devolved into a drunken brawl on the sidewalk outside the restaurant where the Haberkorns, as well as Cooke and her boyfriend, had been dining.
At one point, Matt Haberkorn alleges that Cooke hit him with her clutch — which was made out of mirrored glass. Haberkorn, his wife, Cooke and her boyfriend tumbled around the sidewalk accusing one another of assault. One of Haberkorn’s daughters caught it on her camera.
Cooke, daughter of late Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke, was arrested for the assault. She and her boyfriend had run away from the restaurant after the altercation, but the restaurant gave her name to police investigating the assault.
Haberkorn had taken his wife, 77-year-old mother and four daughters to dinner at Caravaggio, a high-end Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
Hello, fellow Forward reader! I’m Joel Brown, a Forward reader and supporter for more than 15 years, and currently the chair of the board of directors.
I’m an avid Forward reader because it ticks so many of my essential boxes: excellent journalism, Jewish focus and diverse viewpoints. In today’s political climate, what I most appreciate is the Forward’s independence — made possible by the generosity of its membership.
The Forward is committed to bringing you unbiased, nuanced Jewish news. From my position as board chair, I see an exciting future as we expand our position as the definitive independent voice of contemporary American Judaism.
That’s why I’m paying it Forward, by matching $36,000 of reader gifts. It’s an investment in the Forward’s newsroom, to continue telling the American Jewish story with truth and independence.
— Joel Brown, Forward board chair
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
