Mike Loyd and Francisco Cortez honored for leadership and exemplary service
Date: 11/8/2009
It is law enforcement's Academy Awards night, and on Nov. 6 in Irvine, California's finest stepped forward to receive their Golden Badges for a wide variety of heroic actions in service to the safety of Golden State citizens.
Among the 30 honorees in 17 categories were two CSLEA-member Special Agents for the California Department of Justice: Mike Loyd, who won a Top Management Award, and Francisco Cortez, who was presented with a Golden Badge Foundation's Exemplary Performance Award.
A Cop's Cop
"Mike Loyd is a cop's cop," said fellow DOJ Agent and CSLEA President Alan Barcelona. "He would never send anyone under his command into an area or situation he himself would not go into. And the success Special Agent Cortez had in infiltrating the deadly Sinaloa drug cartel during Operation Silver Fox led to the seizing of millions of dollars and drugs. The people of California owe these two men a huge debt of gratitude for making their lives a whole lot safer."
In addition to his duties as a senior task force commander for the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement (BNE), Loyd also is president of the Association of Special Agents-Department of Justice. Although no award was given for that role, Barcelona called Loyd's actions this year in helping stop the California Legislature from chopping $20 million from BNE equally heroic.
"Not only is he the senior commander of the Imperial County Narcotic Task Force, policing an area that is a central terminal in drug trafficking into the United States, and not only do such federal agencies as DEA, ICE, and Border Patrol entrust their own agents under his command, but he also had to take time away from his supremely important duties this year to educate legislators on the importance of not cutting 70 agents from his Bureau," said Barcelona.
10 Different Operations
Wiretaps, reverse stings, informants, and drug traffickers -- foreign and domestic -- in methamphetamines, cocaine, and China White heroin. Give these words to crime fiction writers and they could bang out a hundred pages of riveting read in just a few hours.
But Special Agent Francisco Cortez deals with it all in real life, and lately went undercover in 10 different investigations. By the end of them all, he helped produce 55 arrests and seize $4 million in U.S. currency, 453 pounds of cocaine, 39 pounds of methamphetamines, 2.5 pounds of heroin, and 136 pounds of marijuana, which contributed to the crippling of a deadly drug cartel.
"Commander Loyd and Special Agent Cortez are everyday heroes, not just occasional ones," said Barcelona, "and the CSLEA lobbying team and I made sure Attorney General Jerry Brown and the candidates running to replace him who were in attendance know how positively proud we were of them."
More about the Golden Badge Foundation can be found at the link below.
[Photos, clockwise: Mike Loyd, left, is congratulated on winning his Golden Badge, by CSLEA President Alan Barcelona; Golden Badge Foundation Board members James Ream, left, and Roger Mayberry, right, present Loyd, center, with his award as Master of Ceremonies Pete Demetriou of KFWB News reads Loyd's accomplishments. Loyd and Attorney General Jerry Brown.]
For more information:
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