You could hardly blame Kathleen M. Mehltretter if her career in law enforcement made her

just a bit cynical.

In her 32 years as a federal prosecutor, she pursued cases against crooked politicians,

businesspeople and cops, terrorists and gangsters, child molesters, and scam artists who would

cheat their own mothers.

But when she retired recently, Mehltretter said she still had "a pretty positive outlook"

on most people in Western New York.

"I still have the view that most people are good people," she said. "There are many, many

good public employees and public officials working in this community every day."

A lifelong Western New Yorker, Mehltretter was involved in many highly publicized criminal

cases, including the assassination of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, the Oklahoma City bombing

investigation and the government corruption probes in Niagara County and the Buffalo Parks

Department.

A respected administrator who three times served as acting U.S. attorney for Western New

York, Mehltretter was known in law enforcement circles as a straight shooter with no political

aspirations. She retired April 2.

Many of the region's top criminal-justice officials — from street cops to federal

judges — turned out to honor her at a retirement dinner, lauding her as a tireless and

knowledgeable prosecutor.

"Everyone in this office has the highest respect for Kathy," said U.S. Attorney William J.

Hochul Jr.

"She's been a tremendous asset to law enforcement for a long time," said State Appellate

Judge Salvatore R. Martoche.

Martoche was U.S. attorney here in 1984 when he named Mehltretter, then just 30 years old,

as his chief of criminal prosecutions. At the time, very few women had risen to that level in

the Justice Department.

"She impressed me very much, and I liked two things about her," Martoche recalled. "She was

very honest in evaluating a case. She could separate the real facts from the facts you wished

you had. And she connected with people. She could talk to anybody, and she had a sincerity

about her."

Originally, Mehltretter, who grew up in Cheektowaga, wanted to be a social worker. But she

also had an interest in the law. Her dad, George Kaczmarek, was a deputy sheriff who worked in

the Erie County courts.

"I loved going to court and watching trials," Mehltretter recalled.

She began working for the government after graduating from the University of Dayton and

University at Buffalo Law School. She was accepted into the Justice Department's honors

program.

She either worked on or supervised thousands of cases during her career, but a few stand

out in her memory.

One was the Niagara County government corruption probe, which led to the convictions of a

county legislator, a former social services commissioner, a bribe-paying Niagara Falls

businessman and other defendants in the 1990s.

"It was one of the first times we used wiretaps in this district in a public corruption

case," Mehltretter said. "What strikes me about the case is that so many of these crimes were

for such small amounts of money. I guess these people thought they were flying under the

radar."

Another important case was the worldwide manhunt that led to the capture and conviction of

James C. Kopp, the sniper who murdered Slepian, an Amherst abortion provider, in 1998.

What sticks in Mehltretter's mind is the fact that Kopp might have gotten away with it if

not for an observant neighbor who saw a beat-up car parked near Slepian's home days before the

slaying.

"If that one person hadn't written down the plate number of that car because it just didn't

look right, we'll never know if we would have tracked this crime down to Kopp," Mehltretter

said.

Never a publicity-seeker, Mehltretter said she is proud of the federal prosecutors, agents,

support staff members and local law enforcement officers she has worked with over the decades.

She's also proud of her husband, Joseph, who retired last year after a long career as a

Buffalo Fire Department chief, and her daughters, Sara and Rachel.

Mehltretter plans to do no legal work in her retirement. She said she hopes to spend more

time as a volunteer with the Southtowns Piecemakers Quilting Guild, making quilts for Haven

House and other not-for-profit organizations.

She also plans to play more golf and to somehow get involved in the movement to preserve

some of the beautiful old buildings of Western New York.

"We have amazing architecture in Buffalo, and I would like to be a volunteer somewhere

where they give tours," she said. "We have so much to see. ... Buffalo should be more of a

tourist destination than it is."