Teens Face Trial as Adults in Abuse Case

The teenage parents accused of beating their 2-year-old daughter to death last year must stand trial as adults in a separate 1994 child-abuse case, a judge ruled this week.

Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez, both 19, are scheduled to be arraigned today in Ventura County Municipal Court on charges of torture and felony child abuse.

Prosecutors say the Oxnard couple burned and hit their daughter, Joselin, when she was 6 weeks old, breaking her legs and fracturing her ribs.

Because the couple were only 16 at the time, the case was filed in Juvenile Court.

But after a lengthy fitness hearing, Judge Charles R. McGrath ruled Monday that the parents were unfit for Juvenile Court and should be tried as adults.

If the Hernandezes are bound over for a trial after a preliminary hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said she plans to ask a judge to combine the 1994 abuse case with the pending murder case.

In January, the parents were ordered to stand trial on murder and related charges stemming from Joselin’s death in 1996. That case is set for trial May 5.

Joselin Hernandez was taken away from her parents in 1994 after being hospitalized with broken legs, fractured ribs and burns to her hands and feet and placed in the custody of her maternal grandmother.

But when her grandmother died in a car crash in March 1996, Joselin was returned to her parents. The toddler died three months later of blunt force injuries to her stomach.

The Hernandezes were charged with murder in November, and a few days later prosecutors filed a separate complaint for the 1994 injuries.