Nevada Focus: Jailed lawyer’s life shattered by alcohol, drugs

Thursday, March 26, 1998 | 4:28 a.m.

Loza, 44, was recently sentenced to one to three years in prison. With good behavior, he'll be out in about four months. He already has eight months credit for county jail time but must finish up the balance in the state system.

As a former California attorney, Loza said he didn't know what to expect when District Judge Archie Blake sentenced him.

"I was really concerned what effect my background would have on Judge Blake - either he might see me as a colleague and give me a break or hold me to a higher standard and slam-dunk me," Loza said in a jail interview.

Loza, who also holds degrees in Spanish and business administration, was picked up in Churchill county last July for drunken driving.

He remembers having a couple of drinks in Sacramento on his way to Reno, but somehow ended up in Fallon, 60 miles from Reno.

"The next thing I remember is being pulled out of the car and falling down," he said. "'Evidently, I ran off the road. How could I have driven all that way and not hit something?"

While waiting in jail for the disposition of his case, Loza has done legal work for other inmates, acted as a Spanish interpreter in court, and cleaned toilets and mopped floors.

"I didn't do it for them, I did it for me," he said. "The more idle time you have, the more you suffer."

Loza came to the United States when he was six. His parents owned a chicken ranch in Guadalajara, Mexico, but his mother wanted the American dream for her children.

The parents and four children moved to Gridley, Calif., a farming community 70 miles north of Sacramento. They started with four acres in 1960, and had 2,800 acres when the ranch was sold in 1971.

Loza says his family was close but nobody talked about sex, alcohol or drugs at home. All four siblings were achievers.

"My mom was a school teacher for 33 years and came from the old school. When corporal punishment was abolished, she quit," Loza said. "Life was a real pressure cooker and we were all expected to get good grades."

Loza said his substance abuse problems began in college. The day he was to graduate from law school, his brother found him passed out. Still drunk after black coffee and cold showers, he managed to get his diploma.

"I just thought I was celebrating," he said. "There was this little pub off campus and all my peers were there - it was socially acceptable behavior to go out and get plastered."

Two years later, in 1984, Loza got a master's degree in business administration - and began using cocaine. That escalated until a felony arrest for possession in 1988.

Over the next several years, he lost his $90,000-a-year job as a corporate tax lawyer in San Francisco, lost a roomy house because he couldn't afford the payments, got his first DUI and had his law license revoked.

He started a treatment program in 1993 and stayed sober for almost two years, working as a sales manager in San Jose. But he went back to drinking and picked up his second DUI in 1995 when his car hit a van carrying three adults and two children.

Two years later, he was arrested a third time in Nevada and has been in jail ever since. He says the time he has spent behind bars has been an eye-opener.

"When I'm drunk, I'm 10 feet tall and bulletproof," he said. "But I can't depend on miracles anymore to save me or the lives of others."

He thought of working to regain the possessions he lost once he gets out of jail - but says those things can wait.

"Right now I have nothing and want something but I'm going to hold back those plans and go into a six-month, Christian-based recovery program," he said. "Something's been lacking in my life up to this point."