AMINDA MARQUES GONZALEZ Herald Staff Writer

Someone broke into Hialeah City Hall over the weekend, leaving this enigmatic message on the door to acting Mayor Julio Martinez's office: two rows of nails, staggered one under the other and another set forming a triangle.

"Someone who is supposed to know about these things says it's the devil's triangle -- whatever that means," Martinez said. "He says it's 'brujeria'," Spanish for witchery.

The intruder, who apparently had a key to City Hall, also ripped off Martinez's nameplate from the door and spread some white cream over his secretary's phone.

"It's foolish," Martinez said.

This comes a week after someone spray-painted City Hall with a message urging the return of suspended Mayor Raul Martinez, who was convicted Tuesday on six of eight counts of extortion. And it comes three days after Raul Martinez got a santeria-type blessing as he walked out of federal court Friday.

That Afro-Cuban ritual outside the courtroom appeared to be legitimate, said Ernesto Pichardo, founder of the santeria Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye.

The nails on Julio Martinez's office is a different story, he said.

"Obviously somebody is trying to jerk the guy's mind," Pichardo said. "That's obviously some kind of psychological game that's being played on him that has no religious value. Santeros don't go around putting nails on walls."

Nails are sometimes used to symbolize Ogun, the deity of iron, Pichardo said.

Julio Martinez was also told that it wasn't santeria after all, but satanism. "The thing that upsets me is not what they did, but how they got in here." he said. "A lot of people have keys to this place."

Julio Martinez said he plans to change the locks at City Hall now that Raul Martinez has been convicted and he will remain mayor until the general election in November.