CONFIRMED: HERNANDEZ INDICTED ON 8 COUNTS FOR ROLE IN ILLEGAL HIRING OF BRO-IN-LAW ROBERTO CADRIEL AND ATTEMPTS TO OBSTRUCT INVESTIGATION

By Juan Montoya
Cameron County Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie L. Hernandez was booked and released today after a grand jury on Wednesday issued an indictment charging him with eight criminal counts.

The charges stem from the illegal hiring of his brother-in-law Roberto Cadriel, and inconsistencies between the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses and the three-hour testimony Hernandez gave to a grand jury investigating it. They also deal with alleged Hernandez's involvement in tampering with the testimony of witnesses and government records.

One unrelated charge deals with Hernandez allegedly attempting to have Emergency Management administrator Humberto Barrera reopen an eight-liner business that had been closed by the county.

The indictment includes two counts of official oppression, one count of misuse of official information, two counts of witness tampering, one count of tampering with a government record, one count of obstruction or retaliation, and one count of coercion by a public official.

(To read a copy of the indictment, click on: http://www.valleycentral.com/uploadedfiles/kgbt/news/stories/erniehernandezindictment.pdf)
Hernandez's administrative assistant Raul Salazar was convicted in November of two counts of official misconduct and one count of tampering with a government document in connection with the Cadriel hiring.
He was reported to have posted a $35,000 bond at the Rucker-Carrizales county correction facility in Olmito. The bond was initially set at $75,000 but was lowered at the jail.
Salazar was sentenced to 10 months in county jail and is currently free on bond awaiting the outcome of his appeal.
Salazar did not testify during his trial and Hernandez took the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
He told visiting judge Federico Hinojosa that he was afraid that his testimony during Salazar's trial would contradict what he had told the grand jury in secret.
He told the local newspaper that he had learned of his brother-in-law being hired and then resigning after the fact and that it was only after he had read the online version of the daily.
During Salazar's trial, numerous witnesses testified to the contrary, including Cadriel who told the court that Hernandez had told him he would get him a job and told him to go see Salazar at his county office. Cadriel said that plot to get him a job with the county was hatched at Fiesta Graphics, a sign-making business owned by Ernie and Norma, Hernandez's wife.
Norma – Cadriel's sister – is said to have helped Roberto Cadriel fill out the employment application form because he is reportedly unable to read nor write.
During the course of the Salazar trial, witness after witness confirmed the state's charges that the plot to get
In the Spring of 2010, 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, he said, 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.
Testimony indicated that Lopez told Vera "you know how politics is in Cameron County" and told 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 was trouble. Dalia Saldivar, Vera's superior found out about her taking the test and confronted Lopez. The Cadriel hiring was 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 – had acquired the answer key to it and passed it on to Salazar. Salazar met Cadriel outside the Dancy Building, told him to miss at least seven questions, and Cadriel copied the answers before taking the written test.
He forgot Salazar's instructions, Cadriel testified, and missed only three, the last three. He scored 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 was hired with the county and is signed up to receive a salary, medical insurance and other benefits.
But the news leaked out shortly after that and Cadriel resigned 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 – typed his resignation letter and had him sign it.
By that time, Lopez, director of HR, had resigned saying he wanted to seek "other endeavors."
County Administrator Pete Sepulveda conducted and investigation and handed it in to the Cameron County Sheriff's Department who investigated the matter and handed the findings to then DA Armando Villalobos.
The case languishes there until new DA Luis Saenz took  office.
Hernandez's indictment is just the second part of the puzzle. Still lurking in the wings is the possible indictment of his daughter – Justice of the Peace Erin Hernandez Garcia – if a grand jury decides that she illegally sold 72-hour waivers to couples allowing them to forgo the state-mandated 72-hour waiting period. The DA's office is awaiting an opinion of the Texas Attorney General on whether the sale and issuance by a justice of the peace is illegal.