'I just want to be left alone,' says Alabama boy missing for 13 years
By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com The Birmingham News
Aka Story Package gallery-preview /gallery-preview Aka Secondary Package An 18-year-old boy taken from his Vestavia Hills home 13 years ago today pleaded with the media to leave him alone.
Julian Hernandez, a high school senior in Cleveland where he has lived with his father since 2002, released a statement today amid recent revelations that he isn't who he thought, a discovery made when he started the college application process.
"I ask that you respect my privacy and the privacy of my school, my school's faculty, my friends, and my neighbors,'' he said through the FBI in Ohio. "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,'' he wrote. "Please, no more spotlights, no more cameras, no more reporters sneaking into my school or showing up at my house and no more microphones in my face. I just want to be left alone."
His father, 53-year-old Bobby Hernandez, remains jailed in Cuyahoga County.
Communications Director Joseph Frolik of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office said Hernandez is currently charged with one count of tampering with records. This charge stems from Hernandez giving false information to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get a driver's license in 2012, Frolik said. His bond there is set at $250,000.
Ralph DeFranco, the Cleveland court-appointed attorney representing Hernandez, told News Net 5 the father lived under the assumed name Jonathan Mangina and his son went by J.J.
"I think he saw it coming someday, he just didn't know when, or where. But really a very nice soft-spoken, gentle man who loves his son and his son is in excellent condition," DeFranco told the station.
Jefferson County authorities on Thursday charged the father with interference of child custody, a felony. He will be held without bond once he is brought back to Alabama.
The ordeal began in August 2002 when authorities say Bobby Hernandez went to the Vestavia Hills home where his son lived with his mother. The two were never married, authorities said, so there was no formal custody agreement. The mother was raising Julian Hernandez. She asked the boy's father to watch him for a short period of time, and when she returned home, there was only a note indicating they were gone. She never saw her son again, and reported him missing on Aug. 28, 2002.
Authorities this week said the case has remained open over the years, and they received hundreds of tips but none panned out. The break in the case came last week when the FBI received a tip that a local teen might be a missing child from Alabama. Authorities confirmed the boy was Julian Hernandez. The discovery was made while he was beginning the college application process, and found something amiss with his social security number.
Police said Julian Hernandez's mother, who still lives in the Birmingham area, has spoken with her son, but don't know if they have met or plan to do so. The mother released this statement on Thursday: "Our family was overjoyed this week to locate Julian and learn that he is safe. We want to thank everyone for their prayers and support during Julian's disappearance."