Rudy Farias’ aunt blasts his mom as ‘manipulative,’ ‘greedy’ for allegedly hiding son for 8 years

A tough-talking aunt of the “missing” Houston man Rudy Farias has blasted her “manipulative,” “greedy” sister for allegedly hiding him for eight years — and lying to police and the public about his whereabouts.

Directing her comments at her sister, Janie Santana, an irate Pauline Sanchez-Rodriguez told The Post: “Janie, I know you’re listening to me. I’ll say it in a nice way because your day is coming. We’re almost there to get you.

“There’s nowhere you can run because I’m going to make sure that posters go all over.

“Don’t even attempt to get into an airport and go anywhere,” Sanchez-Rodriquez told The Post exclusively from her Houston home.

Santana was seen by neighbors fleeing her house in the middle of the night on Wednesday, following allegations she had been keeping Rudy locked up in her home.

Farias was said to have disappeared in early March 2015 when he was 17. His re-emergence last week — found with cuts and bruises outside a church — has led to the unraveling of a web of lies surrounding his “disappearance” and efforts to keep him hidden from police and the public.

“We want to thank the media and public for all their support. My son Rudy Farias IV was found on Thursday, June 29, after being missing for eight years,” Santana had written in a statement earlier this month.

But police later revealed Farias had actually returned home March 8, 2015, one day after was said to have gone missing. Despite this, his mother “continued to deceive police by remaining adamant that Rudy was still missing,” officials said.

“She alleged her ‘nephew’ was the person friends and family were seeing coming and going,” Zamora added.

Farias also interacted with police over the course of the eight years, but both he and his mother gave fake names or dates of birth, police said.

Santana has not been charged in connection with her son’s disappearance, nor has a reason for the mysterious cover-up been established.

Speaking to The Post Thursday, Sanchez-Rodriguez said her sister had “always been manipulative.”

“She’s had different husbands, different names,” she went on, at times fighting back tears. “She’s a very greedy person. It’s all about money.”

Farias lived a normal childhood until tragedy struck, first when brother was died in a 2011 motorcycle accident then when his father, a disgraced Houston Police officer, took his own life in 2014.

It was at that point “she took control,” Sanchez-Rodriguez said of her sister.

Michelle Rodriquez, Santana’s cousin, told The Post Farias “was forced to do what his mother told him to do.”

“His mother has held him [at home] under false pretenses that if he reached out and looked for help, he was going to go to jail and something bad was going to happen to him.”

Although Farias was 17 years old and classed as an adult under Texas law “he still had the mind of a 10-year-old,” she said. 

“She’s always been after any way that she can get money. Anything that she has to do, she does it no matter who it hurts,” Rodriguez charged. “And then she moves on to another one.”

Farias was found slumped outside the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church on June 29, 2023, but the circumstances which led him there are unclear at this time.

Farias and his family initially declined hospital treatment after Houston Fire Department checked him over on-scene, officials said Thursday. But Santana later transported him to the hospital.

Police defended their decision to release Farias into his mother’s care and for waiting six days before interviewing him.

“You can’t force a potential victim … to come in and give a statement,” HPD Chief Troy Finner told reporters Thursday.

He declined to say whether he considered Farias a victim.

Police interviewed Farias and Santana Wednesday, and she was allowed to leave the hospital with Farias following the interview. Houston-based activist Quanell X claimed Farias made horrifying allegations against his mother, KHOU 11 reported.

“She would ask him to play daddy, she told him that he had to be the husband,” according to Quanell X, who said he was with police at the time of the hospital bedside interview.

“She was giving him drugs. She was punishing him by locking him in a room over and over. She convinced him that law enforcement wanted to put him in jail … that because he ran away, he was going to go to prison,” the activist claimed.

Quanell X’s account was disputed by Det. Sgt. Stephen Jimenez, who personally interviewed Farias and said there were no claims of sexual abuse from him.

He said he is trained to listen for “statements that can help me get charges or move forward with the case,” but there were none in what he was told during the official interview.

And when asked if the mother could have been charged for failing to notify police of her son’s whereabouts, Zamora said she would have faced a “class C misdemeanor, which is similar to a traffic citation.”

The Harris County District Attorney’s office has declined to charge Santana pending further investigation, citing a lack of probable cause, police and DA officials said although they noted the investigation is ongoing.  

Rodriguez slammed the decision not to charge her cousin.

“Right now, Janie has the chance to get further away. She’s fleeing. They’re giving her a head start when all they had to do was bring her in.”

No search warrants have been executed on the home so far, officials said.

“Rudy is safe,” they said. “He is with his mother by choice. He is a 25-year-old man.”