DA PROVES SKEPTICS WRONG; SAENZ TAKES BULL BY THE HORNS; CADRIEL CONVICTED, GIVEN LIFE TERM FOR MURDER

By Juan Montoya
It has not been a good season for the Hernandez-Cadriel clan.
On the heels of the Cameron County District Attorney's office successful prosecution of Pct. 2 commissioner's administrative assistant Raul Salazar for illegally rigging the Civil Service exam for his boss's brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel, Luis Saenz's office gained the conviction of Aroldo H. Cadriel for murder of a 20-year-old woman whose body was dumped in Combes.
Roberto Cadriel is the brother of Norma Hernandez, the commissioner's wife. The convicted murderer is her cousin.
The state district court jury that found  Aroldo Cadriel guilty Friday and sentenced him to life in prison for the March 31, 2012, murder of Brisna Mireles of Harlingen. He was facing a punishment range of five to 99 years in prison or a life sentence.
That successful conclusion to the case was placed in the hands of  lead prosecutor Arturo “Art” Teniente, who was handling his first capital murder case and was guided by veteran prosecutor Pete Gilman and Saenz himself.
Many "legal experts" had said that the prosecution would be "schooled" by defense attorney Nat C. Perez Jr. and urged them to offer Cadriel a plea bargain.
Those "experts" were proven wrong when the jurors, after only a day of deliberation, rejected the defense theory that someone else may have killed the young woman. Then, when Perez asked that Visiting Judge Marisela Salazar to sentence the man instead of the jury, Teniente objected saying that the court needed the prosecution's consent, which he was unwilling to grant.
News accounts indicate that Visiting Judge Marisela Saldaña, who presided over the trial, sustained the
state’s position while Perez argued that there “wasn’t any harm” in the court sentencing Cadriel.
Because the jury would sentence Cadriel, a pre-sentence investigation report was not required.
The media has fastidiously kept the relationship between commissioner Hernandez and Aroldo Cadriel in the background. However, there have been numerous reports that Hernandez – who was hired by the outgoing county commissioner John Wood as his administrative assistant before before he took office – used his position to do him favors.
In on instance, county workers were told back in May that county crews working under the colonia improvement fund poured in thousands of dollars of caliche on Nogal Road where Aroldo Cadriel's shooting range is located.
Just after Hernandez became former Pct. 2 commissioner's assistant following the disgrace of Carlos Cisneros, he oversaw the work on that road. Workers used thousands of dollars of road material and labor on the road that leads to the range even though the rest of the road south of the range is void of houses.
As in the case of his brother-in-law's illegal hiring, Hernandez said he knew nothing of the work on the road and that it was mere coincidence that his relative owned a shooting range in the area. In Roberto Cadriel.s case, and even after numerous witnesses said he had spoken to them or called them to pressure them to "move the application along" to get his a job, Hernandez said he had learned about his hiring and resignation when he read it on the online version of the local newspaper.
He also took the Fifth Amendment protection from testifying on behalf of his assistant Salazar saying that he feared he might contradict his three hours of testimony before the grad jury.
It's ironic to note that during the time that he has been in custody, someone provided him with a mail-in ballot to vote in the 2012 Democratic primary when Erin Garcia-Hernandez, now the JP 2-2, was in the runoff election with challenger Yolanda Begum.