By Maverick
Welcome to Part 3 of this series about the latest docuseries. Tina Saldivar was listed as the official treasurer of the Selena Y Los Dinos fan club on one of the old binders of Yolanda’s, which her sister kept for decades. This was before Tina became the manager of the Selena Etc. San Antonio boutique. Abraham claimed in that 2014 interview with Robert Rivas that the fan club treasurer was a male. Who is telling the truth and who is lying? Abraham testified under oath at Yolanda’s trial that he never got involved with the fan club. Why is that? He was the manager of the Selena Y Los Dinos band, and he permitted Yolanda to start this fan club in July 1991. Why would he repudiate himself from this business that involved his band? He was avoiding it like the bubonic plague.
It would give someone the impression that either he intentionally or inadvertently chose to look the other way. Abraham’s oldest daughter, Suzette, was an intermediary and event planner when it came to the fan club. Her job was to set up food venues and events to raise money for charity purposes. That’s what the fan club was, DBA or “Doing Business As,” a non-profit organization. Yolanda was essentially working there for free after abandoning her nursing career. It’s not known to many if she actually received a salary for being the fan club President. How Abraham, Suzette, Tina, or even the IRS never got wind of Yolanda’s supposed embezzlement is astoundingly befuddling to this very day. Not to mention, there were no charges filed against her for that crime, too. Love her or hate her, there was no incontrovertible proof that Yolanda embezzled anything from the fan club or Selena’s boutiques that was ever shown in a court of law or to a grand jury. Those are the objective facts.
On the evening of March 9th, 1995, Abraham called a meeting to have Yolanda come down to Q Productions, his flagship location for all operations. Selena and Suzette also attended this meeting, and Tina played a voicemail from Yolanda’s old answering machine of Abraham calling her for this meeting. There is once again a lot of he said/she said dialogue exchanged when it comes down to the premise of Selena’s death. If only Selena herself were here to give her unvarnished side of the story, but that’s ultimately impossible, leaving everyone else to speak on her behalf for the last 28 years.
I’m just going to shift gears for a second and give you all a basic breakdown of what led up to Selena’s shooting. Abraham and Suzette testified that Yolanda was confronted about these missing funds on March 9th, and that Abraham suspected her of embezzling. It was said that Yolanda was awfully quiet and denied their accusations. Selena was reportedly in doubt about these heinous acts allegedly committed by her. Rumors run rampant at that point.
Abraham claims he fired Yolanda from the fan club and also revealed that Selena fired Yolanda, the same night, only to reinstate her days later. Selena’s husband, Chris Perez, confirmed this, too. The official reason for this was that Selena needed important tax documents from her to do her income taxes coming up in just the next month, so she hatched a plan to give Yolanda the impression that everything remained copacetic between them, and in turn, Yolanda would be nice enough to hand off all of Selena’s business records.
Yolanda was supposedly withholding these documents for weeks, and when she would meet with Selena, she never gave her all of the appropriate documents, according to her family and husband Chris Perez. It was a nonsensical cat and mouse game that sounded like something out of a movie, where Yolanda was this cartoon super villain, incapable of being stopped until it was too late. What doesn’t add up is why didn’t Selena and Chris just retrieve all of the tax documents from the bank? At most, she could’ve asked for an extension from the IRS, citing the problems she was going through with Yolanda if they were actually happening.
It was reported that Yolanda never gave Selena back all of her records, not even on the day of the shooting. If that was the case, then how was Chris able to file Selena’s tax returns if he was grieving the loss of his wife and had little time to prepare the necessary paperwork, especially if the paperwork was still unaccounted for? Did he possibly ask the IRS for an extension? It’s a lot of these in-between details that make a story work, and this story is missing a substantial amount of these pertinent pieces of intelligence to really piece together what actually transpired. If Yolanda didn’t give Selena back everything she needed, what did Chris do differently that could’ve been done in the days and weeks leading up to March 31st, instead of playing these frustrating mind games?
Tina claimed there was no way Yolanda embezzled because, remember how she was also a manager for Selena’s San Antonio boutique and would’ve noticed something. She was also the treasurer of the fan club. Based on Tina’s facial expressions and mannerisms, I don’t believe she was covering for Yolanda and helping her get away with it if money was being taken. She was also Selena’s friend, so I truly don’t believe she would’ve done that to Selena or her family. It’s one thing to say that Yolanda is an abomination, but to suggest that the entire Saldivar family is the same way, which would be stereotyping.
To be continued in “Selena and Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them” – Episode 1 Part 4…
