A former Yonkers resident was back in a Westchester courtroom Monday — 42 years after skipping his sentencing on a robbery conviction.
Noel Jo Hernandez, 65, appeared before Westchester County Judge Maurice Dean Williams and pleaded not guilty to a bail jumping charge that resulted from his decades on the run.
A knifepoint street robbery in Yonkers occurred in January 1981 when Hernandez was 21 and involved at least one other assailant. He was convicted of first- and second-degree robbery in a jury trial in 1982.
When Hernandez failed to appear in court, he was sentenced in absentia to 6 1/3 to 20 years in prison and an arrest warrant was issued. Prosecutors then obtained an indictment on the bail jumping charge.
It was believed Hernandez had fled to his native Nicaragua.
Hernandez was picked up in El Paso, Texas in December 2022 after entering the United States.
But according to Westchester County police, federal authorities did not ask about the warrant at the time. Hernandez was eventually released due to overcrowding at the Bureau of Prisons holding facility.
Hernandez taken into custody in July
In February of this year, Homeland Security contacted the county to see if the warrant for Hernandez was still active.
The county’s Warrant-Fugitive Unit then worked with federal authorities to locate Hernandez and he was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force in Miami on July 9.
Hernandez fought extradition to New York, and a Governor’s warrant was sought by the Westchester DA’s Office. It was served on Hernandez late last month and county warrant squad detectives brought him to Westchester last week.
He remains held without bail at the county jail.
Hernandez’s lawyer in the robbery case has long since retired. Richard Ferrante, assigned to the case this week, said he had reviewed the sentencing minutes but was still awaiting details about why Hernandez wasn’t there and where he was and what he did in the intervening years.
“This case is over 40 years old so we’re going to take some time to review the case, review the circumstances and go from there,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Convicted Yonkers robber Noel Hernandez caught after 42 years on run