Parents Bound Over for Trial on Felony Child Abuse Charges

Two years before Joselin Hernandez was beaten to death, somebody squeezed the infant hard enough to break her ribs and twisted her tiny 6-week-old legs with enough force to fracture her ankles.

And somebody--in an almost inconceivable act of abuse--burned her hands, feet and genitals with battery acid.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren ruled that sufficient evidence suggests that Rogelio Hernandez inflicted those injuries and tortured his infant daughter at the family’s Oxnard home.

Concluding a 2 1/2-day preliminary hearing, Perren ordered the 19-year-old father bound over for trial on six charges of felony child abuse and torture.

And he ruled that the baby’s mother, Gabriela Hernandez, also 19, should be tried on three abuse charges for taking no action to stop the violence during a two-week period in July 1994.

“I am satisfied that there is an ongoing abuse of this child,” Perren said.

Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez already face charges of murder and felony child abuse for allegedly beating Joselin to death in June 1996, three months after she was returned to their custody.

The girl was taken away from her parents in 1994 after being hospitalized with multiple rib fractures, broken legs and severe burns.

Although criminal charges were not filed at that time, prosecutors decided to file five counts of felony child abuse and one charge of torture against the Hernandezes a few months after Joselin’s death.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona on Wednesday said that she now plans to ask a Superior Court judge to combine the 1994 and 1996 cases into a single trial.

“They are related,” Corona said after the hearing. “Same victim, same defendant, same type of activity.”

In the 1994 incidents, prosecutors say both parents abused Joselin over a period of weeks when she was 4 to 6 weeks old.

During this week’s preliminary hearing, district attorney investigator Susan Creed testified about two interviews she conducted with a neighbor who said he saw Rogelio Hernandez swing Joselin by her ankles on at least 20 different occasions as she screamed in pain.

In those January interviews, Creed said that Jorge Perez told her that on the night before Joselin was hospitalized, he heard her cry for hours as Rogelio Hernandez yelled for her to “shut up.”

Perez told Creed that Rogelio Hernandez came over to his house the next morning and asked to borrow a car to take his child to the hospital. Perez refused. Gabriela Hernandez later explained to him that the baby had fallen off a bed, Creed said.

Oxnard Police Officer Robert Coughlin testified that when he arrived at the house moments after the father called an ambulance, he saw burns on the infant’s hands and feet.

Coughlin said Rogelio, then 16, explained that Joselin burned herself by touching a car battery sitting in the living room.

But child abuse expert Paul Russell testified that Joselin’s injuries could not have been self-inflicted.

Another witness interviewed by Creed told her that while living with the Hernandezes for three months before Joselin was born, he saw Rogelio Hernandez kick and beat his then-girlfriend, Gabriela.

“All she could do was cower and hold her hands over her head,” Creed testified about the description given to her by former roommate Rafael Gutierrez.

In her summation Wednesday, Corona argued that Rogelio Hernandez broke the child’s legs and burned her extremities and genital area. She suggested that both parents fractured the baby’s ribs--11 in all--by squeezing the child too forcibly on separate occasions.

Corona said that both parents should be held to answer on the charge of torture.

But defense attorneys urged Perren not to order the Hernandezes to face a trial, arguing that evidence in the case was slim and not conclusive.

They fought especially hard to strike down the torture charge, which carries a sentence of life in prison.

“This case has got real problems,” said defense attorney William C. Maxwell, who is representing Gabriela Hernandez.

“Nothing could be an accident in this case,” he told the judge during the hearing, “not even the smallest bruises. Well, that goes a bit far.”

Maxwell specifically referenced the burn on Joselin’s genital area, which he said one doctor described as a diaper rash. He also disputed the number of reported rib injuries.

Additionally, Maxwell pointed out that it was the parents who called authorities seeking an ambulance for their child on July 14, 1994--an act that seems inconsistent with prosecutors’ claims of abuse and torture.

But Perren ruled that there was sufficient evidence to bind both parents over for trial on child abuse charges. Only Rogelio was held to answer on the torture charge, however. An arraignment is set for April 30.