LoStracco Interview - Nicole Newby

The Grand Ballroom was filled with over 1,000 students. After hearing lectures regarding fire safety and hazing, Nicole LoStracco, J.D., took the stage. “I get the fun topic,” she said. “I get to talk to you all about sex, drugs, and alcohol.”

On Sept. 24, attorney LoStracco was one of the speakers at SFA’s Risk Management Training. The presentation was intended to inform representatives from every school organization about the dangers of substance abuse and sexual harassment and methods of preventing them. However, 10 days later, SFA student Nikolas Gallegos died of alcohol poisoning.

“Personally, I don’t know much about the situation,” said LoStracco. “Emotionally, I had to look at it through the viewpoint of the parent, which is what happens when you have children. You feel for the friends. You feel for the family.”

LoStracco also said she was annoyed by the situation. “You treat college kids as adults,” she said. “They can drive a car and live alone, but college kids really aren’t that old. They don’t get it. If you drink too much, you can die. It seems that college kids forget. Your average college student partying can die from alcohol as well.”

However, college students have to look out for one another. “I think it is hard for anybody to understand hazing,” said LoStracco. “It’s tough for us, especially those with independent personalities, to understand that someone could succumb to peer pressure and that they would allow themselves to be hazed.”

LoStracco said that there is a big difference between how the criminal justice system views hazing and how the university views it. The criminal justice system looks for some injury involved, while according to the university, just embarrassing someone could constitute as hazing.

“In religion everyone says a sin is a sin,” said LoStracco. “It doesn’t matter how big it is, it is a sin. The same is true with crime now. Even if someone might not be to the level of going through the criminal justice system, there is still a chance of dealing with it on the university system.”

LoStracco has defended many SFA students against the school’s judicial system. Their crimes range from incidental to serious situations. In response, she created a program that teaches students what to do if contacted by the police. LoStracco said the program answers the question, “Now that you are busted, what happens?” She also teaches how to clean up a permanent record.

“Know your rights,” said LoStracco. “Most of us don’t know our rights and it’s just not fair. I think it’s real important that everyone know the different rights they have.”

Not only does LoStracco serve the SFA community, but she also works for the Nacogdoches justice system. After eight years as assistant district attorney and four years of running her own criminal defense practice, LoStracco is running as a Republican for the office of district attorney of Nacogdoches. She said that she noticed many things that needed to be changed in the office, including managerial decisions and low numbers. The office use to win about 80 percent of its cases, but now only wins about half.

“I had a lot of people in the community come up to me who saw the problems and asked me to run,” said LoStracco. “Enough people finally came to me and were real serious about me running, so it forced me to become serious.”

LoStracco is running against Republican incumbent Stephanie Stephens. She said that Nacogdoches has not seen a large number of candidates run against incumbents.

“I don’t see myself as a politician, even though I am running for political office,” said LoStracco. “I don’t sugarcoat anything.”
However, she does possess qualities of most politicians. She spoke openly and said she is relatively approachable and is one of the youngest lawyers in town and can thus relate more to the college students. “I can talk about anything,” she said.

Despite her current involvement with law, LoStracco said that she did not always know what she wanted to do with her life.
“My father is a lawyer, my godfather is a lawyer. There is a lot of law in the family,” said LoStracco. “I don’t remember making the decision to go to law school. I really thought I wanted to do family law, though. I did a year of it in Lufkin and it was fine, but there wasn’t an opening for it in Nacogdoches. The only thing open was the position in the DA’s office. I walked in and just loved it. I loved prosecuting. There is a real team feeling of getting cases ready and going to trial.”

LoStracco got her law degree from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. She doubled her courses her second year so that she could graduate early and marry James R. LoStracco. They have two children; Juliette, 4; Trey Robert III, 2.