ON THE SALAZAR JURY: WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE?

By Juan Montoya
The opening statements of the state and defense in the Raul Salazar case concluded late Tuesday.
And if you are one of the six women on the male alternate on the Raul Salazar jury on charges he tampered with government documents to make possible the illegal hiring of his boss Ernie Hernandez's brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel you are being asked to believe one of these two scenarios:
The State says it will prove that :
In the Spring of 2001, Roberto Cadriel, brother of Norma Hernandez, wife of Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez, was at the Hernandez's family Fiesta Graphics business on Paredes Road complaining to his sister that he couldn't find a job. The state – through Asst. Cameron County DA Ismael Mendoza and Gus Garza– says that Norma Hernandez recommended that Roberto try the HEB store or the Brownsville Independent School District. Then, Mendoza said, commissioner Hernandez, who was overhearing them, told Cadriel that they would find him a job with Cameron County and that his assistant Raul Salazar wold be contacting him soon.
Mandoza said that the state will show that Hernandez then went to see Human Resources Director Roberto Lopez about getting his brother-in-law a job.
Cadriel – a convicted felon – had been been let go from three previous jobs, Mendoza said. Cadriel had been affected mentally as a result of a near drowning as a child. Nonetheless, Mendoza said that the state will be able to prove that Salazar contacted Lopez at HR and they find out that there is opening for a position with the animal control department. In fact, Mendoza said, Salazar walks Cadriel to the HR office on June 10, 2011 to get tested.
However, Mendoza said that in order to be considered for a job with the county, Cadriel must pas a Civil Service computer exam. But there's a hitch. Cadriel can neither read nor write or how to use a computer to take the test.
Staffers at the HR teach him how to sign in and log on and Cadriel takes the test. He fails on the first one with a 30. He takes a second and scores a 34, both non-passing scores.
When Lopez is told Cadriel can't pass it on the second time and that county policy requires applicants to wait a year before taking it a third time, Lopez makes an exception and decides that perhaps someone else may have to take the test for Cadriel.
Lopez tells HR staffer Carmen Vera "you know how politics is in Cameron County" and tells her to take the test for Cadriel. This time, he scores an 86. But there's trouble. Dalia Saldivar, Vera's superior finds out about her taking the test and confronts Lopez. The Cadriel hiring is put on hold and all three test results disappear.
But on 18 days later, on June 28, Cadriel shows up again to take a written test, this time for a position as a non-commissioned security guard at with the county's international bridge department. The state says Lopez – under the pretext that he is trying to get the bridge system's test modernized so it can be taken on a computer – has acquired the answer key to it and passes it on to Salazar. Salazar meets Cadriel outside the Dancy Building, tells him to miss at least seven questions and Cadriel copies the answers before taking the written test.
He forgets, Mendoza said, and misses only three. He scores a 96.
In the interim before the scores are posted, Both Hernandez and Salazar hound the HR Department, Ast. county administrator David Garcia and David Silva with the bridge system inquiring about Cadriel's test.
On July 28, Cadriel is hired with the county and is signed up to receive a salary, medical insurance and other benefits.
But the news leak out shortly after that and Cadriel resigns from his new position. Less than a week later, Lopez follows suit. County Administrator Pete Sepulveda conducts and investigation and hands it in to the Cameron County Sheriff's Department who investigates the matter, and hands the findings to then DA Armando Villalobos. The case languishes there until new DA Luis Saenz takes over January 2013. Then the investigation is restarted, a grand jury is convened, and Salazar is indicted.
The defense – through attorney Victor Ramirez – wants you to believe this: 
Ramirez says that "just by chance" in June 2011, Cadriel is seeking a job and when he gets to the Dancy Building, runs into Raul Salazar. This, Ramirez tells the jury, was a "chance encounter" and "nothing out of the ordinary." It is, after all, he tells them, a small building and if you're going to the second floor or to the basement, you have to go to the first floor where Salazar works.
In fact, Ramirez, said, Salazar has "no authority" and is "in charge of nobody."
"When Cadriel gets there (to apply for a job)", he sees Salazar and the administrator escorts him to the HR Department and introduces him to the staff there as the commissioner's brother-in-law.
"Salazar is just a secretary to the commissioner," Ramirez said.
Everyone in the HR are the ones who run the department and Salazar has nothing to do with Cadriel's testing or hiring. In fact, he hints, Lopez, who is running for the Brownsville City Commission at the time this happened may have been "scratching someone's back" in the hopes of getting a political favor from someone "who didn't even know he was getting his back scratched (Ernie Hernandez).
In fact, he said, Lopez and his staff knew that Cadriel had been convicted of a felony and it was Lopez who made Vera take the test for him anyway.
"Robert Lopez was the only one who had the ability to make that decision," Ramirez told the jury."It wasn't Raul Salazar," he repeated. "It was Robert Lopez."
"Lopez," Ramirez pounds home, "has done nothing but try to keep himself from getting in trouble."
In the end, the thrust of the defense strategy seems to distance both Salazar and Hernandez from the steps that were taken by Lopez and the HR staff, administrators Sepulveda and Garcia and even the county commissioners to push through the illegal hiring of Ernie's brother-in-law.
"Raul Salazar had not authority," Ramirez said. "The prosecution has targeted commissioner Hernandez. Salazar just got caught in the middle. Commissioner Hernandez is just one member of the commissioners court. No one commissioner can act on their own."
The trial continues Wednesday sometime after 9 a.m.