NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Transient Pleads Not Guilty in Abduction

A transient pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of abducting a female acquaintance, hitting her on the head with a baseball bat and sexually assaulting her for hours in a North Hollywood warehouse.

James Thomas Hernandez, 31, faces life in prison if he is convicted on charges of torture and kidnaping for extortion. He is also charged with rape, four counts of forced oral copulation, four counts of rape with a foreign object, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and making terrorist threats.

Superior Court Judge Michael J. Farrell accepted Hernandez’s plea and scheduled a hearing for June 10 to set a trial date. Until then, Hernandez will be held in lieu of $5-million bail.

Authorities said Hernandez lured the North Hills woman to North Hollywood on March 27 by calling her and saying he was having car troubles.

Hernandez then had the woman drive him to a warehouse, where he clubbed her with a baseball bat, covered her face with duct tape and bound her arms and legs with rope, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Talis S. Haight.

During the two- to three-hour assault, Hernandez also tortured the woman by applying electrical shocks to her breasts, Haight said.

The woman escaped after persuading Hernandez to allow her to call her mother, who she said would deliver money to her captor, prosecutors said. The woman fled when Hernandez drove her to a phone booth, Haight said.