Left inset: Pearl Fernandez (KABC/YouTube). Right inset: Gabriel Fernandez (CASA). Background: The California residence where Pearl Fernandez tortured and abused her 8-year-old son Gabriel Fernandez to death (KCBS/YouTube).
A California mother who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for "beating, binding, burning and starving" her 8-year-old son with help from her boyfriend insists that she was "coerced" into pleading guilty. She is seeking resentencing for the second time after being denied in 2021.
Pearl Fernandez, 42, of Palmdale, claims that the state-appointed defense attorney who represented her "provided ineffective assistance of counsel" and "coerced me into signing a plea of guilt for a sentence of life without possibility of parole," according to local ABC affiliate KABC and the Southern California-based City News Service.
Fernandez was sentenced in 2018 after entering a guilty plea in which she confessed to the brutal torture and mistreatment of her son, Gabriel, who died from blunt force trauma and child abuse over a long period of time. Fernandez's boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, was also found guilty of participating in the abuse and sentenced to death.
In 2021, Fernandez was denied a resentencing request after making similar claims about her guilty plea being wrong, insisting that she was not involved in her son's 2013 death. Prosecutors said the boy was forced to eat cat feces and slept handcuffed to a small wooden drawer inside a closet-like box, along with other heinous treatment.
"Clearly Pearl was involved in that child abuse, starving Gabriel, keeping him in the box for eight months, not taking him for medical aid, pepper-spraying him in the face, hitting him with a baseball bat — so many things were brought out in the trial," Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami said at a hearing during Fernandez's first attempt for resentencing, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Last week, Fernandez filed papers claiming she still deserved to be resentenced and noted how she had received assistance with her latest petition, KABC and CNS report.
Fernandez alleges that "the petitioner has comprehension issues and documented verbal comprehension of a second grade student" and that she was "mistakenly under the impression that her case would then be going to appeal" when she signed the plea agreement before her 2018 conviction.
Hatami told CNS that he plans to once again "fight to make sure this doesn't happen." A hearing has been set for March 30.
"These repeated requests to be re-sentenced are unfair and unjust to Gabriel, Gabriel's family, his siblings and our L.A. community," Hatami blasted. "Having to continuously relive these events and trauma for the family is not humane. At some point in the criminal justice process, we must stand up for the victims and for justice. So, as long as I'm around this planet, I will continue to do my part and make sure Gabriel receives justice and is never forgotten."
Fernandez was accused of abusing her son because she "believed the boy was gay," according to a 2018 press release announcing her guilty plea.
"Gabriel suffered numerous injuries, including a fractured skull, 12 broken ribs and burns," the press release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said.
Fernandez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and admitted to the special circumstance allegation of intentional murder by torture. Aguirre was found guilty of first-degree murder and the special circumstance allegation of intentional murder by torture.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, social workers who handled Gabriel's abuse case were accused of felony child abuse and falsifying public records, but had their cases dismissed in 2020. Their defense attorneys argued that the abuse Gabriel suffered got worse after the state closed out the boy's file. They also said the social workers did not have enough evidence to take the boy away from his mother.