ROBERT CADRIEL: "NORMA FILLED OUT MY APPLICATION"

By  Juan Montoya
In the Spring of 2011, Roberto Cadriel was living in his pickup truck that was parked in the parking lot of Fiesta Graphics on Paredes Road.
Fiesta Graphics is owned by Cameron County Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez and his wife Norma.
Norma is Roberto Cadriel's sister. Ernie Hernandez is his brother-in-law.
As he recounted on the stand today, he went into his sister's office one morning and told her he needed help getting a job. His sister, he recalled under questioning by Cameron County Ass. District Attorney Gus Garza, suggested he try to apply at HEB or at the Brownsville Independent School District. But then the county commissioner, who was standing nearby, said he would help him get a job with the county.

He told him that his administrative assistant Raul Salazar would be getting in touch with him. A day or two later (June 20, 2011), he was told to go to the Pct. 2 office and talk to Salazar and that he would help him.
"He (Ernie) told me to go to his office in the courthouse," he answered.
"Did you go talk to Raul Salazar before you took the test?" Garza asked Cadriel.
Salazar not only talked to him in the Pct. 2 office, but he also led him to the Human Resources office where he introduced him to director Robert Lopez, who Salazar said would help him with the application process.
From that moment on, things started to go haywire.
Although he is unable to read or write in either Spanish or English or operate a computer, Cadriel said that he was helped by the staff to log on the computer on which he would take the test. Twice he tried and failed, scoring a 30 and then a 34 on the Civil Service examination required for all applicants seeking employment with the county. The job as for an animal control officer, a dog catcher.
On the third time he passed with an 86.
Who took the test and who told them to take it in his place is yet unknown in the second day of the trial. All that is known is that after he passed with an 86, a controversy arose inside the office and its director, Robert Lopez, took the results and placed them in a file in his office.
Twelve days later, Cadriel appeared again to take another test, this time a written one for an opening in one of the county's international bridges.
Since he had already filled out an application for the dog catcher job, Cadriel was not made to fill out another application.
Since he could neither read nor write, Garza asked Cadriel who had filled out the application for him.
"Norma, my sister, filled it out," Cadriel answered.
And where did she fill it out?, prodded Garza.
"She filled it out at the store (Fiesta Graphics)."
But before he took the fourth test, this time a written one, he said he was given the answer sheet to the exam for a security guard slot by Salazar. He said he copied all the answers and that he filled out all the answers correctly on the exam except for the last three. He had forgotten, he said, that Salazar had told him to miss at least seven questions so as not to make it obvious he had the answers.

"Did someone give you the answers to the test?," Garza asked. "Was it that man sitting over there (pointing to Raul Salazar?)"
"Yes, I was told to miss them (answers) by (Raul Salazar)," Cadriel said.
"Since you cannot read English and this was a written test, how did you take the test," Garza asked.
"I put the answers that I was given" Cadriel replied,
 Cadriel was eventually hired on July 28 and lasted less than a week before he resigned because of the controversy that someone who could not read or write, a convicted felon, and a relative of a county commissioner has been hired illegally.
When the heat started to get too much to bear politically, Cadriel said that he had to resign.
Why?, asked Garza.
"I was told by Norma that I had to quit...My sister and Ernie told me to leave town."
Five days after he was hired, Cadriel signed a letter of resignation for David Silva, his supervisor.
How did he write it?, he was asked.
"He (Silva) wrote it and I signed it," Cadriel answered.
But before he left town, an investigator went to look for him at Fiesta Graphics and talked to him outside. When he left, he said Ernie and Norma told him not to talk to investigators anymore.
"I was told at the store (Fiesta Graphics) not to not to cooperate with him anymore," Cadriel said.
Defense attorney Victor Ramirez's line of questioning obviously was meant to confuse the already befuddled man, asking him about the four exams he took at Human resources, but Cadriel's answers indicated he was already mixed up about the chain of events and the timeline.
At one point Ramirez asked Cadriel whether it had been Robert Lopez who had given him the answers to the written exam amd Cadriel replied that it was "not Robert Lopez."
When Cadriel tried to elaborate that it has been Salazar, Ramirez cut him off.
The trial continues Thursday at 9 a.m. in the 445th District Court under visiting judge Federico Hinojosa.