The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma is stepping down, effective next Friday.
Sanford Coats served for over six years as the chief federal law enforcement officer for more than half of Oklahoma’s counties.
President Obama nominated Coats in September 2009 after Coats had served five years as the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the same district. The U.S. Senate confirmed Coats on Christmas Eve of that year, and he was sworn in a week later.
Coats successfully prosecuted several federal civil and criminal cases, including many sex trafficking and fraud cases. He also served roles in the Department of Justice, including as Co-Chair of the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee.
According to a press release, Coats’s resignation takes effect January 15.
Coats is the son of former Oklahoma City mayor Andy Coats. The younger Coats earned his bachelor's degree at Tulane University in 1994, and graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1998, where his father served as dean from 1996 to 2010. After graduating from law school, Sanford Coats clerked for Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Marian Opala.
To earn money for school, Coats sold classified ads for the Oklahoma Gazette, which is what he was doing on April 19, 1995, The Journal Record's M. Scott Carter reported in 2010:
“I was at my desk at the Gazette when the Murrah Building was bombed,” he said. “I’ll never forget any of that.” That event would change him. It would push him further toward a career in public service. He would go to college. After getting his bachelor’s degree at Tulane University in New Orleans, he returned home. And, again, he followed his father – this time to the OU law school. “It wasn’t always easy, having your father as dean of the law school you’re attending,” he said. “I knew he expected a lot. But I also got to see him every day. And he helped me with my classes. He was a great resource.”
Coats began his legal career as a commercial litigator, but realized he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as a public servant. In 2007, while still serving as the AUSA, he volunteered for a short-term assignment in the USA's office in New Orleans - part of a Department of Justice initiative to help prosecute violent crime after Hurricane Katrina, according to Carter:
“I was working on a case when Katrina hit,” he said. “I saw all that devastation and I felt helpless. That’s when I decided to volunteer.” And despite the fact his wife, Danielle, was pregnant at the time, Coats went to New Orleans. “I just looked around and thought ‘let’s make this better,’” he said. “I thought ‘what can we do to make this a better place?’” The answer was simple: Get the bad guys off the streets so people would move back. “We fought a lot of crime and drugs down there,” he said. And, eventually, some of the people returned.
Oklahoma's Western District covers 44 of the state's 77 counties, serving more than two million people, and Tinker Air Force Base and Fort Sill in Lawton. Coats was able to apply what he learned in New Orleans to the gang problem in southwest Oklahoma. But, as Carter writes, he also felt passionate about the Native American community, serving with the Department of Justice as the Vice-Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee Native American Issues Subcommittee:
“We’re very committed to working there,” he said. “I feel like we need to do more to reach out to Native Americans and let them know we’re here for them, too.” To do that, Coats said he would expand his outreach efforts with Native Americans and work to address their concerns. “The U.S. attorney should work for everyone,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
Coats is only 44, and it’s unclear what his next career move will be.
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