Wanted on Hartford Under-Age Sex Charge, Picked up in Darien

A Stamford man wanted on a charge of having sex with a young teenager when he himself was 17 was found in a passenger seat of a car stopped for a motor vehicle violation, Darien police said.

Police gave this account (an accusation not proven in court) of the matter:

Hartford police have charged Kristian Hernandez, now 24, with second-degree sexual assault -- which involves sexual relations with a child 13 to 15 years old by someone three years older than that child.

According to an online record of the charges against Hernandez, the sexual assault took place on or around April 1, 2007, when Hernandez (whose birthday is in April) was just about to turn 17 years old. The victim would have been 13 years old, or perhaps about to turn 14.

Hernandez was also charged with risk of injury to a minor (a charge which may refer to impairing the morals of a minor), a crime which he is accused of committing on the same date.

Hartford police had applied for and received a warrant for Hernandez' arrest, but hadn't found him.

That changed at 11:51 a.m. on Sunday, when a Darien police officer on patrol and using a license plate reader, stopped a car traveling north on Hoyt Street.

The license plate reader alerted the officer that the license plate on the vehicle was for a car other than the 2007 Honda Accord the officer was looking at. The officer stopped the car, which was being driven by Natividad Soto, 39, who lives at the same address on Courtland Hill Street in Stamford as Hernandez.

Soto told the officer that she had just bought the vehicle, and the license plate had been given to her by a man she didn't know in the Hartford area. She was charged with misuse of license pates, operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license, operating an unregistered motor vehicle and driving without insurance.

The car was towed away. Soto was given a misdemeanor summons telling her to appear March 20 in state Superior Court in Stamford.

Hernandez was held by Darien police until Hartford police sent officers to take him back to Hartford for arrest processing. According to the state Judicial Branch website, Hernandez has appeared in state Superior Court in Hartford twice. He was released on a promise to appear April 21.