Despite the fact that he was kept from his mother for 13 years, Julian Hernandez says he forgives his father. Bobby Hernandez was charged with kidnapping his son and secretly hiding in Ohio for 13 years.
Despite this, Bobby Hernandez was portrayed as the model father that raised his son well.
“He’s been a perfect father,” Ralph DeFranco, Bobby Hernandez’s court-appointed attorney, said according to Washington Post. “I just meant he couldn’t have done anymore. The young man is a senior, he’s a straight-A student who played sports; he was planning to go to college. It’s gratifying that this young man turned out as well as he did.”
Bobby Hernandez is accused of fleeing Alabama with his then 5-year-old son instead of dropping him off at daycare when he was in the middle of a custody dispute. Bobby Hernandez went by the name Jonathan Mangina and fled with his son to Cleveland.
Julian discovered what was going on when he was 18-years-old and trying to apply for college.
He noticed that his social security numbers didn’t match his name. A school counselor later figured out that he was on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s list. Up until then, he had no idea that he had been kidnapped.
“He anticipated there would come a time when this would happen — and it happened,” DeFranco said. “He understands what the situation is and he feels very badly the whole thing happened.”
Bobby Hernandez, a U.S. Navy veteran with no significant criminal history, was sentenced to four years in prison in April 2016 after pleading guilty to kidnapping and other charges.
He asked the courts in 2017 to release him from prison and put him under some kind of alternate supervision.
“Clearly the defendant understands and appreciates the gravity of this case and understands that he denied the child’s mother access to him for many years,” DeFranco said in a court filing according to the New York Daily News.
Julian Hernandez’s mother and family were reportedly happy to hear that he was found and is healthy.
Julian Hernandez has been in contact with his long lost family and has asked for his privacy to be respected.
“I ask that you respect my privacy and the privacy of my school, my school’s faculty, my friends, and my neighbors,” Julian Hernandez said to the FBI, according to AL.com. “At this point, I just simply want to be normal. I want to go through my day like I did before this week, just being a normal 18-year-old. I have goals that I am striving to meet so please, again, respect my request for privacy.”
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