RAUL SALAZAR'S APPEAL DENIED BY 13TH CT. OF APPEALS; COURT SENDS MANDATE TO TRIAL COURT TO JAIL HIM

By Juan Montoya
All that 's keeping Raul Salazar from beginning his 10-month jail sentence for his conviction on two counts of abuse of official capacity and one of tampering with a government document in the illegal hiring of his boss Ernie Hernandez's brother-in-law is for the trial court to impose the appeals court's mandate.On December 2013, Salazar was convicted in the 445th District Court and he appealed the 10-month concurrent sentence imposed by visiting judge  Federico Hinojosa.
On February  26, 2015, after first denying him a copy of the trial transcript as an indigent, the court affirmed the judgment of the trial court and ordered that its sentence be imposed. (Click on graphic to enlarge.)
Yet, at a May 14 hearing before Hinojosa, the judge said he had not yet received the appeals court mandate and said he had no jurisdiction until he received it.
Now, with the mandate in possession of the Cameron County District Court, the appeals court ordered that its mandate should be "duly recognized, obeyed and executed."
Since Salazar was tried on the three misdemeanor counts together, the maximum time that Hinojosa could sentence him was to one year. When multiple counts are tried together, the sentencing is always to the benefit of the defendant. Salazar's sentence included time served – an apparent reference to the evening he was processed at the Rucker-Carrizales Corrections Center at Olmito – before he was released under the county's Pre-Trial Release program. That apparently, earned him two months credit on the sentence.
Salazar was the administrative assistant to Hernandez whose bother-in-law through his wife Norma, Roberto Cadriel, was hired illegally as a security guard .
During the trial, testimony from several witnesses indicated that Cadriel – a convicted felon – was not eligible for employment with the county because he could neither read nor write, could not operate a computer, and was unable to pass the Civil Service examination all county employees must pass.
Several witnesses said that a Human Resources female employee was ordered to take the exam for Cadriel after he tried and failed twice with score sin the low 30s. When the woman took the exam for him, he scored an 86.

After he couldn't get the position he sought initially (animal control, that is, dog catcher), witnesses and Cadriel himself testified that a copy of the answers to a written test for security officer were given to him before he took the exam. He scored a 96 and was placed as a non-commissioned security guard at one of the bridges at the Cameron County International Bridge System.
And even though his boss Ernie Hernandez denied any role in his hiring, Cadriel testified on the stand that it was the commissioner who told him to go see Salazar at his commissioner's office to help him apply for a job with the county. Cadriel said Norma – his sister and the commissioner's wife – helped him fill out the county application.
Then, during the trial, numerous state witnesses said Hernandez and Salazar pressured them through conversations and phone calls urging them to "move the application along," and get Cadriel hired.
Cadriel resigned – as did then-HR director Robert Lopez after media inquiries about his hiring began.
Hernandez told the local daily that he knew nothing about Cadriel being hired or resigning until he read it in the online version of the Brownsville Herald.
However, at the start of his assistant's trial, Hernandez – on the advice of his attorney – took the Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination and refused to testify on his behalf. Hernandez said that he was afraid that  some of the testimony he gave to a grand jury (three hours in all) might contradict the testimony he gave during Salazar's trial and he refused to take the stand.
Now, after all his appeals were denied, it is only a matter of time before Salazar takes the fall for his former boss.