SALAZAR GUILTY THRICE; ERNIE STILL INVESTIGATION TARGET

By Juan Montoya
It took a six-woman jury all of 40 minutes today to agree with Cameron County Asst. DA Gus Garza that they send a "loud, clear message" that local residents will no longer allow political corruption to guide this county and tell county employees that the protections they have under Civil Service mean something by finding Pct. 2 administrative assistant Raul Garza Salazar guilty on three imdictments.
The jury found Salazar guilty on two counts of official misconduct and one count of tampering with a government document in the 445th District Court presided by visiting judge Federico Hinojosa.
Salazar, who was free on a bond issued by the Cameron County Pre-Trial Release Program, was ordered held until he could post a $50,000 bond on a count which the judge discovered was not covered by a bond.
Hinojosa set the sentencing date for December 12.
Since Salazar was tried on the three misdemeanor counts together, the maximum time that Hinojosa can sentence him to is one year. When multiple counts are tried together, the sentencing is always to the benefit of the defendant. Unless Salazar cuts a deal with the court, he will serve the sentence in a Cameron County jail.
Testimony in the trial concluded Thursday afternoon with instructions to the jury and closing arguments by the prosecution and defense this morning.
The defense strategy focused on the role that former Human Resources director Robert Lopez played in the scheme to hire Roberto Cadriel, brother-in-law of Salazar's boss, Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez. Attorney Victor Ramirez attempted to plant a seed of doubt in the jurors' mind that Lopez – who at the time of the incident, June 2011, was a candidate for the Brownsville City Commission – had twisted the Civil Service rules to "scratch someone's back without that person known his back was being scratched."
In other words, Ramirez asserted that Lopez was trying to curry the favor of the Hernandez vote-harvesting machine to get himself elected to the city commission in his race for the city commissioner at-large seat against Estela Chavez-Vasquez. If that was his hope, it was unfounded since he lost.
But the jury – like the prosecution – apparently decided that it wasn't Robert Lopez or any member of the HR staff that was responsible for the execution of the scheme.
If Salazar thought his boss would come in and testify in his defense, he was badly mistaken.
Right at the start of the trial, during the pre-trial motion stage, the commissioner told the court through his attorney Ed Cyganiewicz that he would exercise his Fifth Amendment right not to testify for fear of self-incrimination.
During a hearing to assert that right, Hernandez said the DA confirmed that he was a target of an investigation himself.
Neither Hernandez nor his wife Norma testified in the case although both were subpoenaed as witnesses. Salazar's attorneys decided not to allow him to testify in his own defense.
The jury apparently found the evidence introduced in the case compelling enough to convict in such a short time. During the course of the trial, witness after witness confirmed the state's charges that the plot to get Cadriel a job with the county was hatched at Fiesta Graphics, a sign-making business owned by Ernie and Norma Hernandez.
In the Spring of 2001 the state showed that Cadriel, brother of Norma Hernandez, was living in his truck which was parked at the family business business on Paredes Road. Cadriel testified that he was complaining to his sister that he couldn't find a job. He said his sister recommended that Roberto try the HEB store or the Brownsville Independent School District. Then, Cadriel testified, commissioner Hernandez, who was overhearing them, told Cadriel that they would find him a job with Cameron County and that his assistant Raul Salazar would be contacting him soon.
Human Resources director Lopez said Hernandez called him on the telephone to come to his office and talked to him about getting his brother-in-law a job.
Cadriel – a convicted felon – had been been let go from three previous jobs, partly as a result of a learning impediment, the result of a near drowning as a child. On one job he had been fired for misconduct. On another, he had been fired for not showing up. His felony conviction for tampering with a government document also disqualified him from being hired by the county.
Nonetheless, witnesses said that Salazar contacted Lopez at HR and they find out about Cadriel testing for a position with the animal control department. Salazar walked Cadriel to the HR office on June 10, 2011 to get tested.
However, in order to be considered for a job with the county, Cadriel had to pass a Civil Service computer exam. But there was 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 took the test. He failed on the first try with a score of 30. He took a second test and scored a 34, both non-passing scores.
When Lopez was told Cadriel couldn't pass it on the second attempt and that that county policy requires applicants to wait a year before taking it a third time, Lopez said he made an exception and then – witnesses testified that Salazar and Lopez – decided that perhaps someone else may have to take the test for Cadriel.
They chose Camen Vera, a then-27-year-old mother of two who had been in the department for less than a year, and the last on the pecking order in the department.
Lopez tells Vera "you know how politics is in Cameron County" and tells her to take the test for Cadriel.
Under questioning from Asst. DA Gustavo Garza, she said both Lopez and Salazar  were involved in telling her to take the third test in Cadriel's stead.
"Did you feel pressured at the time?" Garza asked her.
"I felt like I was going to lose my job. I have two kids I got to raise," Vera stammered.
This time, Cadriel's score is an 86. But there's trouble. Dalia Saldivar, Vera's superior found out about her taking the test and confronted Lopez. The Cadriel hiring is put on hold and all three test results disappeared.
The job, apparently, had been given to someone else by the Health Department by then.
Vera said that right after she took the test for Cadriel, Salazar came up to her at the HR counter and asked if "I had done as I had been told to do."
Eighteen days later, on June 28, Cadriel showed 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 passed 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, Cadriel testified, and misses only three, the last three. He scores a 96.
In the interim before the scores are posted, both Hernandez and Salazar hound the HR Department, Asst. county administrator David Garcia and David Silva, director of 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 only five days on the job. He testifies that his sister Norma – who filled out his application – now tells him he has to resign. Someone – no one will admit who – types his resignation letter and has him sign it.
By that time, Lopez, director of HR, has resigned saying he wants to seek "other endeavors."
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.
This morning, six women from Cameron County agreed withe the DA that they'd had enough of political corruption and of putting people like Vera and the rest of the county employees through the ordeal of obeying illegal orders or losing their jobs. They vote unanimously to convict Salazar.
But the story is not over. This coming Thursday, there is an item on the county commissioners court approving a restructuring of the HR Department, apparently pushed by Hernandez. Two of the employees targeted for "reorganization" are the two who received subpoenas to testify in court. If the reorganization is approved, they will, in effect be demoted with a cut in pay.
During his testimony, county administrator Pete Sepulveda said he was against the restructuring as proposed because it smacked of retaliation by Hernandez against the two employees who helped convict Salazar with their testimony.
"As we stand here there is an item on Thursday's commissioners court agenda to demote them," Garza thundered. "Are we going to stand for that? Did thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens who gave their all do that so we could allow these people to step on their sacrifice? Our employees should be protected. You can show them that we are a nation of laws, not men," he said pointing at Salazar.
And they did.
The DA's office and other unnamed law enforcement agencies, meanwhile continue to investigate Ernie Hernandez.