Acting U.S. attorney for Colorado Dave Gaouette started his law-enforcement career patrolling the streets of Lakewood in a pair of flammable polyester pants.
The police officer’s uniform in 1976 was designed to convey the professionalism of an agent and came with a coordinating blazer that Gaouette was required to wear every time he got out of his patrol car.
“The pants could catch fire with road flares,” he joked. “Directing traffic in a sport coat was an unusual thing.”
Lakewood’s police uniforms have come a long way since then, and so has Gaouette.
The 54-year-old was appointed Colorado’s acting U.S. attorney when Troy Eid resigned last month.
Eid was appointed by President George W. Bush, and with a new administration, a new federal prosecutor will be chosen to run the office.
In the meantime, Gaouette — who was Eid’s first assistant — is in charge, and he plans to stay in the office after an appointment is made.
While working as a police agent, Gaouette decided to go to the University of Denver law school and become an attorney.
He applied at the U.S. Department of Justice and worked his way up as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., where he handled jury trials on cases ranging from shoplifting to stolen cars.
“I convicted a minister of stealing a car,” said Gaouette, now himself a eucharistic minister. “It was a great place to get experience.”
In 1989, Gaouette and his wife decided to come back to Colorado and start a family. They have two sons.
But the Colorado U.S. attorney’s office was not hiring prosecutors. Gaouette accepted a job at a private firm only to learn two weeks in that there was an opening for a prosecutor.
“I had to go to the firm and say, ‘Sorry, this is what I wanted to do,’ ” he said. “I believe in this mission and this work.”
Gaouette has taken a number of leadership roles in his 25-year career with the Department of Justice.
He says that while not many criminal-terrorism cases have been filed, that does not mean that the focus on those investigations was not needed.
“The prevention of terrorism is an achievement, and it has not been an accident that there have been no attacks on American soil since 9/11,” he said.
More recently, Gaouette helped coordinate security and civil-rights issues surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
His next challenge will be keeping the office running until a new U.S. attorney comes in. “We’ll make the transition as smooth as possible,” he said.
