admitted that Lozano had shown him a newspaper clipping about his arrest.  Although DeWald testified that he did not realize that Lozano had later been convicted, the ALJ found that statement "incongruous," and credited Lozano's account of DeWald's knowledge of Lozano's criminal past.  Corroborating Lozano's testimony about DeWald's knowledge, employee Rex Alan Rife recalled a conversation at which DeWald, Rife, and Lozano were all present, when Lozano told DeWald about his gang experience, the drugs, his arrest, his incarceration, and how that experience led him to his religious rebirth.  The ALJ credited Rife's testimony on this point and thus necessarily rejected the testimony of Royalite's witnesses, who all said that they were unaware until after the union objection hearing that Lozano had been convicted orhis job application.  Lozano was a major witness at the hearing on the objections.  At that hearing Royalite's attorney directly asked Lozano whether his answer to the question about prior crimes on the application was true;  Lozano immediately replied "no."   Lozano also freely admitted that he had been convicted of distributing cocaine and that he had served time for his offense, and said that he had made a mistake in checking "no" on the application.  At a later meeting regarding his suspension Lozano explained further "that he had filled out many applications and most of them asked if you had been convicted in the last 5 years, this is a mistake on my part and a technicality on your part."


10
The company continued