Friends Recall Hernandezes as Well-Liked--and Generous

For her 40th birthday, Daniel Hernandez stashed a diamond bracelet in the glove compartment of his wife’s gift--a red convertible Ferrari Mondial.

For his 40th, Susie Hernandez threw a bash at the tony Four Seasons Hotel for 110 of their nearest and dearest. The engraved invitations came in the mail, embossed on champagne bottles with a color picture of the birthday boy.

Daniel Martin and Susie Amash Hernandez, who were reportedly raised without money, became prominent socialites who gave generously to charities across the county and leaped into the fashionable set a few years ago with gem-studded hands and a mini-fleet of luxury cars.

On Friday, the high-living couple were accused of mail fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and illegal wire transfers in connection with nearly $8 million missing from his former employer, a Santa Fe Springs precious-metals firm, where Daniel Hernandez had worked for more than a decade.

According to Internal Revenue Service documents, it would seem that the Hernandez couple were toasting champagne on a beer budget.

“I am so devastated by what has happened,” said Tina Schafnitz, a friend of the couple who travels in the same social circles. “They are incredibly nice people who would do anything for anyone.”

When interviewed recently for a feature story in a local society sheet, Danny Hernandez said he was born in Topeka, Kan., the eldest of five and the son of a railroad worker. Now, at 40, he drives a black Ferrari Testarossa.

Susie Hernandez, a 41-year-old Palestinian who told the interviewer that her family fled Israel in 1948 with just the clothes on their backs, totes the couple’s two children around town in a trio of Mercedes-Benzes.

A Rolls-Royce Silver Spur, which also came with jewels inside on another birthday, serves as their family car.

“I don’t have the desire to be the wealthiest man alive,” Danny Hernandez, named Orange County’s best-dressed man in 1992 for his Giorgio Armani duds, told Newport Beach 714. “I don’t have to work, but I like it. It keeps things in perspective and keeps me humble.”

Friends and fellow socialites described the couple as dynamic, generous, family-oriented folk who love to dress up, adore the opera and know how to have fun.

Susie Hernandez is a frequent shopper at Neiman Marcus in Newport Beach, where she has racked up a $400,000 tab at the fine-jewelry counter and is well-known throughout the store, according to court documents filed Friday.

Danny Hernandez, meanwhile, is considered a “great” customer at the Fletcher Jones Mercedes dealership in Newport Beach as well as at Newport Imports, where he bought his more exotic wheels, say dealership officials.

They dine regularly at the Center Club, a members-only restaurant next to the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, Prego in Newport Beach, and Tutte Mare, a Fashion Island eatery a few steps from the portals of Neiman Marcus.

Society columnists have chronicled how Joachim Splichal, chef at Patina restaurant in Los Angeles, whips up his special Santa Barbara shrimp--the Hernandezes’ favorite dish--for all the couple’s catered parties.

“They enjoy an accelerated living style (but) they never flaunted their money,” said Newport Beach millionaire Richard Engel, who met the Hernandezes two years ago and socializes with them frequently. “They conduct themselves appropriately. I never would have guessed that they had any problems because they seemed to be very at ease with their money.

“They seemed to enjoy it,” Engel said. “They had a good time and took care of contributing their fair share to the community.”

Indeed.

Two weeks ago, Susie co-chaired the “Road to Rio” gala, which raised $125,000 for the American Heart Assn. In 1991, the couple ran the “Art of Dining,” the Newport Harbor Art Museum’s largest annual fund-raiser.

They hosted a $20,000 Valentine’s Day supper for 50 guests to benefit the museum in 1992 and bid $16,000 at a museum auction the year before to lunch at the late Coco Chanel’s apartment in Paris.

“I don’t think they could say no to anyone,” Schafnitz said. “They donated to every charity that asked them.”

Lovers of music, Danny and Susie Hernandez frequented performances of Opera Pacific. He serves on its board of directors and is a member of the Costa Mesa-based company’s Impresario Circle for donors of $5,000 or more.

Susie Hernandez is a board member and Angel of the Arts for the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and has served for the past two years on the Newport Harbor Art Museum board.

“They are wonderful, and they are representative of a new generation of philanthropists,” Maxine Gavier, the museum spokeswoman, said when asked initially about the couple. “When you’re in development, you usually track people for years, but suddenly there were the Hernandezes, full blown--so that was kind of mysterious.”

Those who traveled in the same high-society circles with Daniel and Susie Hernandez say they never questioned where they got their money. But Daniel Hernandez never earned more than $57,000 a year as a customer sales representative for PGP Inc., a precious-metals firm in Santa Fe Springs, according to court documents.

“They’re charming and warm and gracious and would just be a good friend to anybody,” said Jolene Engel, Richard’s wife, who co-chaired the “Road to Rio” event with Susie Hernandez. “We never ask people about their financial situations. I don’t appreciate anybody asking me, so I don’t ask them.

“He was no better dressed than any of my other friends that we hang around with. . . . He didn’t wear rags,” she said. “He was just someone like us.”

But their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different.

Susie Amash was the youngest of seven in a family that immigrated to Hawthorne in 1959. She attended El Camino College, then worked at various banks, according to a 1991 profile of the couple in the Newport 714 magazine article.

Daniel Hernandez told Newport 714 Editor Donna Bunce that his family was “definitely considered poor,” that he began his career in Midwest medical supply companies and moved to Southern California in 1976.

The couple met in 1981, late one Saturday night at a Newport Beach after-hours spot. A month later they were engaged, and were married within the year, they told Bunce.

Besides his career at PGP, Daniel Hernandez told the interviewer that he has dabbled in acting, taking classes at South Coast Repertory and auditioned in Los Angeles under the stage name Nick Jordan. He also claimed to have invested in a fast-food restaurant, Swanky Franky, along with actor Charlie Sheen and director Steven Spielberg.

Susie Hernandez managed a Newport Beach architectural firm until 1985, when she became pregnant with their first child. Now, friends say, she devotes most of her time to the children, 6-year-old Amanda, who attends St. John’s School in Rancho Santa Margarita, and 4-year-old Nicky.

“Their kids are the world to them,” Schafnitz said. “They took their children any place and every place they could. Their children’s education and their upbringing are the most important thing to them.”

The couple’s custom-made valentine this year oozed with the message of family: Close friends received a placard with nine full-color portraits of Susie, Daniel, Amanda, Nicky and their pooch, wrapped in a huge red ribbon.

But Susie Hernandez remains estranged from her Palestinian relatives, many of whom still live in the area.

“I don’t know anything about her life,” said Fay Amash, her older sister, who lives in Costa Mesa. “I don’t even have her phone number.”