LOPEZ: "THE COMMISSIONER CALLED ME TO HIS OFFICE"

By Juan Montoya
Sitting among the audience listening to the testimony in the trial of Cameron County Pct. 2 Administrative Assistant Raul Salazar, Assistant U.S. Attorney Oscar Ponce must have suppressed his amusement as the defendants defense attorneys tried mightily to distance their client and his boss Commissioner Ernie Hernandez from the scheme to get  Roberto Cadriel – the commissioner's brother-in-law – a county job.
"I got a call from the commissioner to come to his office," former Human Resources director Robert Lopez told Asst. DA Gustavo Garza. "He said he wanted Mr. Cadriel to get hired."
Upon prodding by Garza on which commissioner called him, Lopez said he meant Commissioner Ernie Hernandez.
Two days later, Lopez said Salazar showed up with Cadriel in tow to have him apply for a position as an animal control officer.
When a controversy erupted in the HR office over the fact that an employee – Carmen Vera – had taken the test the third time and passed with an 86 after Cadriel had failed with a 30 and 34 score respectively, Lopez said he had taken the test materials – written an incident report to his immediate superior county administrator Pete Sepulveda, and locked them in his files.
Up until today, the whereabouts of the test materials and files remains a mystery.
Lopez said he had not taken, destroyed r shredded the materials and that once he resigned from his position following the discovery of the bogus hiring of the commissioner's brother-in-law, he had not idea what happened to the documentation.
"After I left, I turned in all my keys and files to the county," Lopez said.
Lopez said that after the animal control job fell through for Cadriel, about 12 days later Salazar inquired about a position with the county's international bridge system for a non-commissioned security guard. Cadriel – brother of commissioner Hernandez's wife Norma and a convicted felon – would not have been qualified to carry a firearm.  
Lopez also told Lopez to give him an answer sheet to the written test given for that position.
"Did the defendant ask you why he wanted an answer sheet?," asked Garza.
"No," said Lopez. "When he asked me for it, he told me it was something the commissioner was asking for, that it was something the commissioner wanted."
According to the prosecution, Salazar told Cadriel that he should miss at least seven questions in order to not make it so obvious given his past scores on the previous tests. However, Cadriel – who suffered mental injuries and has a fifth-grade level intelligence – told them he "forgot" and missed only three to score a 96 on the written test after he copied the answers from the answer sheet.
After the prosecution handed the witness over to the defense, attorney Victor Ramirez tried to distance Salazar from having been the moving force following Hernandez's orders to have the HR department hire his brother-in-law.
Ramirez hammered at Lopez having made at least four statements under oath where he gave slightly differing accounts of the ones he gave previously. He called Lopez's answer that he had tried to clarify inconsistencies in previous statements "lies," a description which Lopez disagreed with.
At times it seemed to spectators that Ramirez was more interested in defending Hernandez, who is not named as a defendant in the case than he was Salazar, his client.
He asked Lopez if he had ever been interviewed by nay county commissioners when he was hired with the county and whether any of the commissioners had ever given him a promotion.
"Can you tell me when was the last time a commissioner fired somebody beneath (Asst. county administrator David) Garcia's position?"
In previous testimony, Lopez has said he feared for his job if he didn't do what Hernandez ordered him to do because he remembered what had happened to former county auditor Mark Yates.
"He did not want to do what do some action that he didn't want to," Lopez said.
"And he was charged with an offense...and terminated...and charged?" Garza asked.
"Yes, sir, he was," Lopez said.
Lopez said that he had complied with what Hernandez and Salazar asked him because he was fearful for his job, future career, and the birth of  anew child.
"I was only trying to protect my family," he said.
Ramirez suggested that Lopez was testifying in the Salazar case and against Hernandez because the commissioner had interfered with the contracts that a construction company he owned jointly with a partner had stopped receiving contracts with the county after Hernandez found out and put a stop to them.
"That's probably one of the reasons that you don;t like Ernie Hernandez or Raul Salazar, isn't it?" Ramirez asked. "You don't like people to get in your way."
Testimony continues this afternoon.