Oxnard Man Faces Jail in Kidnaping of Sons : Courts: Children were returned from Mexico. Judge reluctantly agrees to lighter three-month sentence due to a global treaty.

An Oxnard man who hid his sons from his ex-wife for almost two years was sentenced Friday to serve three months in jail by a judge who said he preferred a lengthier penalty but couldn’t risk angering Mexican officials, who had helped recover the children.

Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele lashed out at Ruben Nava Hernandez at the sentencing hearing, saying the defendant was hiding behind a claim that love drove him to abduct his children.

In reality, the judge said, the crime was an act of anger and violence toward Hernandez’s ex-wife.

“He didn’t love his children enough that he understood his children’s need for a mother,” the judge said. “I don’t know how you draw a distinction between this and ordinary kidnaping.”

Steele actually sentenced Hernandez to a year in jail, but suspended all but 90 days. “It will cause me absolutely no pain at all if the defendant violates the terms of probation to make me impose the remainder of the sentence,” Steele said.

Hernandez, 31, abducted his three sons in 1993 and took them to Mexico, where he hid them until government officials stormed his home last May and rescued the boys.

This was the first time that children were retrieved in Mexico and returned to the United States under the terms of The Hague Convention, a treaty between several nations that includes a promise to return children who are hidden in one country when they normally reside in another.

Ventura County prosecutors had no expectation of ever bringing Hernandez to justice, but he unexpectedly returned to California a month ago and pleaded guilty to child abduction.

His children--ages 11, 9 and 5--are now living with their mother, Patricia Hernandez, in Oxnard.

Patricia Hernandez did not appear in court for the sentencing, but sent a letter detailing her pain and tears during the 21 months in which she did not know where her children were.

“My heart was broken in two, and I felt like what was happening to me was all a bad dream, but it was true,” she wrote.

She said she slept with pictures of her children and cried herself to sleep every night, and sometimes during the day she would park at her children’s school and cry.

“I want Ruben, father of my sons, to know that he did hurt me just like he wanted, but he also had no right to hurt them by taking them away from their mother,” she wrote.

When Hernandez pleaded guilty to child abduction, the district attorney’s office said it would ask for a jail sentence of no more than 90 days. Steele agreed to place Hernandez on probation, but the judge said that after reading the probation report on the case, he wanted to send Hernandez to prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Grossman urged Steele to stick to the 90-day commitment, saying U.S. government officials had requested a somewhat lenient sentence for Hernandez so Mexican officials would be willing to cooperate in future cases involving abducted children.

Steele reluctantly agreed to the jail term, saying he did not want to “interfere with the ability to get other children in the future.”

Approximately 30 nations have signed The Hague Convention, with Zimbabwe the most recent country to join. Mexico became a signatory in 1991, while the United States adopted the treaty in the mid-1980s, Grossman said.

Ventura County prosecutors are trying to use the treaty to recover children in Greece, Grossman said.

Hernandez has not been allowed to see his children since his return to the United States. Steele will let a family law court determine visitation procedures.

The judge ordered Hernandez to pay the costs of any therapy his children or Patricia Hernandez need as a result of their separation.

Patricia Hernandez had primary custody of the boys when they were abducted from Oxnard. With the help of the FBI, the boys were located in March in Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Kenneth G. Eade, attorney for Ruben Hernandez, told Steele the defendant wanted to extend “his deep and sincere apology” to his children and ex-wife.

“During the breakup of a marriage, oftentimes people do things that would otherwise be completely out of character. . .,” Eade said.

Outside the courtroom, Grossman shook Hernandez’s hand and wished him luck.

“You’ll see [the children] again,” the prosecutor told Hernandez. “It will be supervised, but you’ll see them again. They love you.”