Missing teen may have turned to Reddit for help

Andrew J. Yawn | The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser

Show Caption Hide Caption Father of missing boy found in Cleveland arrested The father of a boy reported missing in Alabama 13 years ago has been arrested for allegedly falsifying documents. The man's attorney described him as a 'soft-spoken person who knew this day could come.'

Before the world of 18-year-old Cleveland student turned upside down this week with his father's arrest, a newfound mother and a newfound name, an anonymous Reddit user asked fellow redditors a question: How can I correct my school records with my real name and Social Security number and still have time to apply for scholarships for college?

Because this Reddit user didn't identify himself, no one can confirm whether the seven-paragraph post came from the teen whose birth name is Julian Hernandez. But the details in the item submitted Sept. 26 to the news and social-networking website suggest similarities to the case that has unfolded in the past several days.

Sometime between the ages of 3 and 5, my dad took me, against a court order, away from my mother without me even knowing this. He changed my name and SSN and did something similar for himself. I have lived my entire life up until a few days ago oblivious to this fact (I was told the name people had been calling me when I was young was my current middle name.) I only discovered all this as I was applying for scholarships. ... I'm not angry at my father in the slightest. I remember that he used to ask me "If I ever committed a terrible crime, would you still love me?" I still do, even after learning everything.

Hernandez couldn't be reached for comment, but at about 4:30 p.m. ET Thursday the Reddit user who called himself Throwaway0805049 said he and Hernandez are the same person and deleted his month-old post.

"I was really emotional at the time," he wrote Thursday. "A lot of the things I said in those posts were simply fueled by confusion, anger, rumors, lies, etc. Please take everything I said there with a grain of salt."

He didn't want to comment more at the moment, he wrote.

"I'll set the record straight when I sort out the rest of my life," he wrote.

Hernandez apparently was taken by his father 13 years ago from the Birmingham, Ala., suburb of Vestavia Hills in a custody dispute, according to the FBI. His mother, who was not married to his father, thought the boy's father was taking him to preschool, but the pair never returned.

For all of those years, Hernandez had been listed on a missing children's database, but law-enforcement officers who had received tips on his whereabouts kept hitting dead ends. He may have been living in Cleveland since he was taken, the FBI said.

Ultimately, Hernandez discovered his birth identity when he kept seeing that the Social Security number he needed to apply for scholarships could not be verified, and he and his high school counselor went looking for answers. They found a page with his information on The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's website, also now removed.

Because Hernandez was 5 when he was taken, he might not remember his mother, accord to a 30-year-old study on parental abductions on the Justice Department's National Criminal Justice Reference Service website. That can cause emotional problems when they eventually reunite.

"I do remember some things about my mother," Throwaway0805049 wrote in response to a commenter. "I remember she was still young at the time, probably early 20's. See, my mom and dad had a deal that if they broke up, my dad would take me, but ... my dad got a call from a judge ordering him to return me to my mother, and that was when he decided to run away. I remember that moment so well, but I never knew who he was talking to or why until recently."

Hernandez was healthy and not being held against his will when the FBI confirmed his identity.

In the Sept. 26 Reddit post, Throwaway0805049's biggest concern was making sure that his good grades and high ACT scores would be associated with his "real" name and Social Security number so he could get those scholarships. And he wanted to keep his father out of trouble.

"My father has done his best to deal with the mistakes he has made and he clearly regrets them," Throwaway0805049 wrote. "He has raised me well. I wouldn't have done so well in school without his pressure, and I am perfectly clean and sober without any criminal records."

His father won't be so lucky.

Bobby Hernandez, 53, of Cleveland is accused of providing false information in March 2012 to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to obtain a fake identification card. He is being held on $250,000 bond in Cuyahoga County and also will face charges almost 650 miles away in Alabama for interference of custody, a felony that could carry a prison term of one to 10 years, when he is extradited.

Follow Andrew J. Yawn on Twitter: @yawn_meister