Bobby Hernandez has been sentenced to four years in prison after kidnapping his own son and getting both identities for him and the child.
A five-year-old boy was taken from his mother in 2002 by her boyfriend at the time. Bobby Hernandez abducted the son he had with his girlfriend and created a new life in Cleveland under fake names and social numbers.
The hearing
Julian Hernandez spoke on his father’s hearing in Cleveland on Wednesday, assuring his father gave him everything he needed in his life.
53-year-old Bobby Hernandez was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in a previous hearing last month. Hernandez was accounted fifteen counts, in which figured: kidnapping, interference of custody, tampering record, and forgery.
The father had lived 13 years in Cleveland with false identities, yet Julian Hernandez assures he had a supportive father.
“He’s raised me well in my opinion a lot better than other parents I’ve seen, he’s pushed me far in school and is the reason what I get such good grades and why I’m going to college. He loved and protected me,” said Julian Hernandez at his father’s hearing.
Reporters asked Julian about his relationship with his mother and how it felt growing up without her. The teenager assured growing up without a mom was hard but his father was everything he needed.
On the other part, the teenager’s mom has issued a statement with her attorney in which she states that losing her son was the worst thing of her life. She didn’t know if her son was still alive.
In August 2002, a woman reported his son was missing after his father went to babysit the child in Birmingham, Alabama where she lived. The father had left a note in where he assured that it was the last time she was going to see her son.
Rumors assure Bobby Hernandez had threatened the mother to take the child if she broke up with him.
The discovery
Julian Hernandez, was an A student in his High School in Cleveland. As a senior, he began his college procedures but had troubles with his social security number when applying.
Hernandez school counselor discovered the student figured in the list of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Bobby Hernandez managed to obtain a new driver’s license and change the social security number of him and his son.
The father was then arrested when working at a factory on November 2015.
Source: Washington Post