by Jim Barton on Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 1:18am
When the story broke about the brother-in law of Ernie Hernandez getting a job at the Veteran's Bridge dishonestly, I messaged District Attorney Armando Villalobos via Facebook about his responsibility to look into the matter. He responded August 8: "We are awaiting the information from the County Judges office. We will certainly take a look." The County Commissioners first sent the potential lawbreaking case to the Brownsville Police Department. After a month of juggling the hot political potato, Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia sent it back to the county commission. Now, we learn, it's back in Villabobos hands.
Robert Cadriel, the brother-in-law of Ernie Hernandez had worked for the county before, but had been convicted on six counts including bribery. He applied for a job with the county again using State Senator Eddie Lucio and City Manager Charlie Cabler as references. There was only the formality of a basic competency exam in the way. Cadriel failed twice while personally taking the test with scores of 30 and 33, almost the equivilent of putting your name on the test sheet and accidentally getting a couple of questions correct. It was reported that a female assistant under the direction of Human Resources Director Robert Lopez then took the test for Cadriel, scoring a 96. This all came to light after Cadriel had worked one day on the job. Cadriel resigned as did Human Resources Director Robert Lopez. Lopez was quoted at the time as resigning "to pursue other endeavors," but a young family man with a newborn child does not leave a high paying county job simply to pursue other unknown endeavors. Robert simply got entangled. The alleged orchestrator of these shenanigans is County Commissioner Ernie Hernandez.
Ernie Hernandez has been fending off charges of ethical violations for a couple of decades. Rather than developing a sensitivity to ethical issues, he has simply hardened. He is Brownsville's and Cameron County's teflon man. Nothing sticks. So, now it's up to Villalobos. Will he do his job as district attorney and fight corruption in Cameron County or will he punt the matter to Willacy County where a former assistant serves?
How Villalobos handles this will help voters see if he's worthy of higher office or even the office he currently holds.
Villalobos failed the litmus test when he failed to prosecute Aurora de la Garza's son, Joey after he defrauded a local hospice out of about $150,000. Sheriff Omar Lucio refused to arrest little Joey and then "Mando" helped get Joey fixed into Judge "Disable" Limas' court and Joey was given "deferred adjudication" by a Lame Duck Judge who then vacated the conviction before he left office. Mando fails Ethics 101 in my book and has given lots of "professional courtesy" (meaning special legal treatement) to too many members of his party, especially lawyers. We have too many unethical people in Washington and Austin already. Its time we had an honest public servant for a change.
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