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Wow! Somehow this p.o.s. beat the rap! Whatever, sucks for the victim's families though. Back to the cell with you scumbag
A jury on Friday cleared Aaron Hernandez of committing a double murder in 2012, handing the former New England Patriots star his first significant legal victory since his shocking arrest for a third slaying in June 2013. Hernandez is already serving a life term without parole for that killing.
Hernandez, 27, was acquitted in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in a drive-by shooting in Boston’s South End in the early morning hours of July 16, 2012.
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The jury also acquitted him of witness intimidation in the shooting of the star prosecution witness, Alexander Bradley, in Florida in 2013.
He was convicted on just one charge, illegal possession of a firearm, and was immediately sentenced to serve four to five years in prison.
Some 60 people were in the ninth floor courtroom — relatives of the two murdered men, Boston police detectives, and Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez — when the forewoman began announcing the verdict.
Ernesto Abreu, the father of one of the victims, sat staring straight ahead, stoically, as he heard the verdicts.
When she heard that her long-time boyfriend and the father of her four year old child was acquitted of the murders, Jenkins-Hernandez shut her eyes and wept uncontrollably while nodding furiously in agreement.
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Hernandez himself was crying as were some members of his defense team, including Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard Law School professor who battled with the Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke several times during the long trial.
“It was the only fair and just verdict,’’ Sullivan told reporters. “Mr. Hernandez was wrongly accused of these crimes.’’
Sullivan spoke about Hernandez’s reaction. Jose Baez, the high profile Florida defense lawyer, was not in court due a medical issue, the Globe has learned.
“He broke down in tears. He was relieved as well. He has been living with for a long while,’’ Sullivan said. “The actual perpetrator of this crime was given immunity by the Commonwealth. He [Hernandez] was charged with something that some else did.’’
He added, “we hope that the public will now see Aaron for who he is – a very good young man who happened to hang out with a really bad guy in Alexander Bradley.’
Jenkins-Hernandez told reporters she was “very happy” as two friends led her into the women’s room on the ninth floor.
Relatives of the victims declined to comment as they left the courtroom, but before they stepped outside one relative called out, “he got away with murder!”
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said prosecutors respect the jury’s verdict, but said that “we investigated thoroughly and fairly and in our minds it points inescapably to Aaron Hernandez . . . Alexander Bradley . . . did not commit the crime. The only one responsible was Aaron Hernandez.’’
Conley also criticized the defense for suggesting that de Abreu was a drug dealer and Furtado was described as someone who fired back during the fatal confrontation.
“Everything we know about these two hard working humble Cape Verdean immigrants,” Conley said. They didn’t deserve that. That was entire inappropriate in my mind. It wasn’t necessary. It was wrong and it shouldn’t have been done.’’
He said the acquittal has left survivors of the two men heartbroken. “They are very sad about what happened,’’ he said. “They uplift us by thanking us by speaking for Danny and Safiro.’’
But Hernandez, once cheered at Gillette Stadium for his pass catching ability and on-field toughness, will not taste freedom anytime soon.
He is already serving a life sentence for the June 2013 fatal shooting of Odin L. Lloyd, a Dorchester man killed in an industrial park near the North Attleborough mansion Hernandez shared with Jenkins-Hernandez.
Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, center, the fiancee of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, is comforted as she reacts to Hernandez's double murder acquittal Friday.
STEPHEN SAVOIA/POOL
Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, center, the fiancee of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, is comforted as she reacts to Hernandez's double murder acquittal Friday.
And Judge Locke on Friday sentenced Hernandez to serve 4 to 5 years in prison on the one charge on which he was convicted — unlawful possession of a firearm. But in a symbolic move that lawyers have said shows a judge’s disdain toward a defendant, he ordered Hernandez to start serving the new sentence after the life without parole ends.
In the double murder case, prosecutors portrayed Hernandez as a wildly impulsive athlete who, despite his fame and limitless potential, was prone to rages over minor slights, especially at clubs he frequented.
One such incident occurred around 12:30 a.m. on the night of the killings, prosecutors said, when de Abreu bumped into Hernandez inside Cure Lounge, a Theater District nightclub, and spilled a drink on him.
Rather than apologize, prosecutors said, de Abreu, a hard working Cape Verdean immigrant enjoying a rare night out, had the temerity to smirk at Hernandez, touching off the deadly drive-by around 2:30 a.m. at the corner of Shawmut Avenue and Herald Street
But while jurors viewed video surveillance of Hernandez entering and exiting Cure, they saw no footage that captured the spilled drink incident.
And Conley’s office gambled heavily by relying on Bradley, a convicted felon and Hernandez’s former friend, as its star witness. Bradley is currently jailed in Connecticut for an unrelated club shooting and testified for prosecutors under an immunity deal.
Over three-plus days on the stand, Bradley told jurors he was behind the wheel of Hernandez’s Toyota 4Runner when the football star leaned across him and fired five shots into the victims’ BMW.
He described Hernandez as increasingly paranoid after the killings, barring friends from using iPhones in his presence and constantly looking over his shoulder for undercover detectives. He even thought police were tracking him from the sky by helicopter, Bradley said.
Jose Baez, a lawyer for Hernandez, attacked Bradley’s credibility during a withering cross examination.
He derided Bradley as “a killer” nicknamed Rock for his habit of “rock[ing] people to sleep.”
And the flashy litigator, who previously won an acquittal for Casey Anthony in a child murder case in Florida that garnered national headlines, insisted that Bradley shot the victims over a drug deal.
Baez hammered away at Bradley’s correspondence with Hernandez after the Florida shooting, when he threatened to sue and kill the athlete, bragged about his personal weapons arsenal and said he had “wolves” ready to assist him in committing violent acts.
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez turned to look in the direction of the jury as he reacted to his double murder acquittal on Friday.
STEPHEN SAVOIA/POOL
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez turned to look in the direction of the jury as he reacted to his double murder acquittal on Friday.
The defense attorney also highlighted a text Bradley sent to his lawyer in July 2013, when he expressed concern about being charged with perjury for his grand jury testimony in a related case.
And, Baez noted, Bradley initially claimed Hernandez tossed the murder weapon from the 4Runner as they fled the crime scene, while authorities said they recovered the gun from a woman with links to Hernandez nearly a year later.
Not even corroborating testimony from Brooke Wilcox, the mother of Bradley’s child, could convince jurors that Hernandez killed de Abreu and Furtado.
Wilcox told jurors that Hernandez and Bradley arrived at her Hartford apartment about two hours after the killings. She said a distressed Bradley told her, “this crazy mother [expletive] just did some stupid [expletive].”
But Sullivan suggested that Bradley used a combination of bribes and fear to convince Wilcox to lie for him. She conceded that Bradley provided her with thousands of dollars from prison and that she had taken out a restraining order against him.
She said Bradley made child support payments with legitimate income he derived from a trucking company.
Sullivan scoffed at the notion, asking Wilcox if the company “truck[ed] marijuana and cocaine.”
Bradley also failed to convince jurors that Hernandez tried to silence him about the killings by shooting him in Florida in February 2013.
Jurors acquitted Hernandez of a witness intimidation charge stemming from that alleged shooting, which Bradley said occurred after a night of heavy partying at a South Florida strip club.
Bradley testified that he and Hernandez visited Tootsie’s Cabaret with other men on the night of February 12, 2013, and that he and Hernandez argued about splitting a $10,000 tab the group ran up in a VIP area.
As night gave way to early morning, Bradley testified, he argued with Hernandez again on the ride back from the club, asking the driver to turn around so he could retrieve his phone.
Hernandez vetoed the idea, and a despondent Bradley fell asleep, only to wake up later in the back seat to find “Mr. Hernandez pointing a gun in my face,” he testified.
Bradley said Hernandez fired and helped another man shove him out of the vehicle, leaving him for dead in a parking lot in Riviera Beach, Fla.
But Baez pointed to ballistics evidence that he said contradicted Bradley’s account of being shot inside a vehicle. He also said Bradley may have hidden a firearm in a grassy area near the lot, even though a smiling Bradley insisted, “I didn’t have a gun.”
Throughout the trial, family members of de Abreu and Furtado maintained a constant presence in courtroom 906.
They cried as they heard harrowing details of their loved ones’ final moments, and as jurors viewed crime scene photos of the injuries that killed the young men, who worked overnight cleaning offices.
Hernandez also had his supporters, including Jenkins-Hernandez, who attended several days of testimony before she took the stand herself.
Suffolk First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan grew increasingly frustrated when Jenkins-Hernandez said she could not recall key details of the case, including a phone call she received from Hernandez minutes after the double slaying.
Jenkins-Hernandez stunned courtroom observers when she described a routine where she and her fiance moved in separate circles, at one point telling Haggan that she “stayed in the room and did what I had to do.”
Jurors also heard revealing grand jury testimony from Jenkins-Hernandez, who told the earlier panel, “I learned to keep my mouth shut in certain situations. . . . I played my role.”
Her fallen fiancee, whose career highlights included a Super Bowl touchdown and a $40 million contract he signed one month after the double murder, will continue playing a role he has grown used to --- that of a maximum security inmate at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley.
But while Hernandez remains incarcerated for the foreseeable future, there were reminders throughout the trial of his former standing as a celebrated pro athlete.
Jurors at one point heard from Deonte Thompson, Hernandez’s former college teammate who now plays for the Chicago Bears.
Thompson refused to shun Hernandez on the witness stand, telling the jury “that’s my guy.”
When he stepped down, Thompson tapped his chest as he walked by Hernandez, in a gesture of solidarity.
Thompson quickly exited the courtroom, free to return to life as an NFL wide receiver, with all its attendant perks.
Hernandez, meanwhile, hugged his attorneys before he was led outside the courtroom, where correctional officers waited to escort him back to prison.
The state’s highest court will automatically review his Bristol County conviction.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...trial-start/FvbRSR9XtY1APZ5EnLnwtL/story.html
A jury on Friday cleared Aaron Hernandez of committing a double murder in 2012, handing the former New England Patriots star his first significant legal victory since his shocking arrest for a third slaying in June 2013. Hernandez is already serving a life term without parole for that killing.
Hernandez, 27, was acquitted in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in a drive-by shooting in Boston’s South End in the early morning hours of July 16, 2012.
ADVERTISEMENT
The jury also acquitted him of witness intimidation in the shooting of the star prosecution witness, Alexander Bradley, in Florida in 2013.
He was convicted on just one charge, illegal possession of a firearm, and was immediately sentenced to serve four to five years in prison.
Some 60 people were in the ninth floor courtroom — relatives of the two murdered men, Boston police detectives, and Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez — when the forewoman began announcing the verdict.
Ernesto Abreu, the father of one of the victims, sat staring straight ahead, stoically, as he heard the verdicts.
When she heard that her long-time boyfriend and the father of her four year old child was acquitted of the murders, Jenkins-Hernandez shut her eyes and wept uncontrollably while nodding furiously in agreement.
ADVERTISEMENT
Hernandez himself was crying as were some members of his defense team, including Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard Law School professor who battled with the Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke several times during the long trial.
“It was the only fair and just verdict,’’ Sullivan told reporters. “Mr. Hernandez was wrongly accused of these crimes.’’
Sullivan spoke about Hernandez’s reaction. Jose Baez, the high profile Florida defense lawyer, was not in court due a medical issue, the Globe has learned.
“He broke down in tears. He was relieved as well. He has been living with for a long while,’’ Sullivan said. “The actual perpetrator of this crime was given immunity by the Commonwealth. He [Hernandez] was charged with something that some else did.’’
He added, “we hope that the public will now see Aaron for who he is – a very good young man who happened to hang out with a really bad guy in Alexander Bradley.’
Jenkins-Hernandez told reporters she was “very happy” as two friends led her into the women’s room on the ninth floor.
Relatives of the victims declined to comment as they left the courtroom, but before they stepped outside one relative called out, “he got away with murder!”
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said prosecutors respect the jury’s verdict, but said that “we investigated thoroughly and fairly and in our minds it points inescapably to Aaron Hernandez . . . Alexander Bradley . . . did not commit the crime. The only one responsible was Aaron Hernandez.’’
Conley also criticized the defense for suggesting that de Abreu was a drug dealer and Furtado was described as someone who fired back during the fatal confrontation.
“Everything we know about these two hard working humble Cape Verdean immigrants,” Conley said. They didn’t deserve that. That was entire inappropriate in my mind. It wasn’t necessary. It was wrong and it shouldn’t have been done.’’
He said the acquittal has left survivors of the two men heartbroken. “They are very sad about what happened,’’ he said. “They uplift us by thanking us by speaking for Danny and Safiro.’’
But Hernandez, once cheered at Gillette Stadium for his pass catching ability and on-field toughness, will not taste freedom anytime soon.
He is already serving a life sentence for the June 2013 fatal shooting of Odin L. Lloyd, a Dorchester man killed in an industrial park near the North Attleborough mansion Hernandez shared with Jenkins-Hernandez.
Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, center, the fiancee of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, is comforted as she reacts to Hernandez's double murder acquittal Friday.
STEPHEN SAVOIA/POOL
Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, center, the fiancee of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, is comforted as she reacts to Hernandez's double murder acquittal Friday.
And Judge Locke on Friday sentenced Hernandez to serve 4 to 5 years in prison on the one charge on which he was convicted — unlawful possession of a firearm. But in a symbolic move that lawyers have said shows a judge’s disdain toward a defendant, he ordered Hernandez to start serving the new sentence after the life without parole ends.
In the double murder case, prosecutors portrayed Hernandez as a wildly impulsive athlete who, despite his fame and limitless potential, was prone to rages over minor slights, especially at clubs he frequented.
One such incident occurred around 12:30 a.m. on the night of the killings, prosecutors said, when de Abreu bumped into Hernandez inside Cure Lounge, a Theater District nightclub, and spilled a drink on him.
Rather than apologize, prosecutors said, de Abreu, a hard working Cape Verdean immigrant enjoying a rare night out, had the temerity to smirk at Hernandez, touching off the deadly drive-by around 2:30 a.m. at the corner of Shawmut Avenue and Herald Street
But while jurors viewed video surveillance of Hernandez entering and exiting Cure, they saw no footage that captured the spilled drink incident.
And Conley’s office gambled heavily by relying on Bradley, a convicted felon and Hernandez’s former friend, as its star witness. Bradley is currently jailed in Connecticut for an unrelated club shooting and testified for prosecutors under an immunity deal.
Over three-plus days on the stand, Bradley told jurors he was behind the wheel of Hernandez’s Toyota 4Runner when the football star leaned across him and fired five shots into the victims’ BMW.
He described Hernandez as increasingly paranoid after the killings, barring friends from using iPhones in his presence and constantly looking over his shoulder for undercover detectives. He even thought police were tracking him from the sky by helicopter, Bradley said.
Jose Baez, a lawyer for Hernandez, attacked Bradley’s credibility during a withering cross examination.
He derided Bradley as “a killer” nicknamed Rock for his habit of “rock[ing] people to sleep.”
And the flashy litigator, who previously won an acquittal for Casey Anthony in a child murder case in Florida that garnered national headlines, insisted that Bradley shot the victims over a drug deal.
Baez hammered away at Bradley’s correspondence with Hernandez after the Florida shooting, when he threatened to sue and kill the athlete, bragged about his personal weapons arsenal and said he had “wolves” ready to assist him in committing violent acts.
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez turned to look in the direction of the jury as he reacted to his double murder acquittal on Friday.
STEPHEN SAVOIA/POOL
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez turned to look in the direction of the jury as he reacted to his double murder acquittal on Friday.
The defense attorney also highlighted a text Bradley sent to his lawyer in July 2013, when he expressed concern about being charged with perjury for his grand jury testimony in a related case.
And, Baez noted, Bradley initially claimed Hernandez tossed the murder weapon from the 4Runner as they fled the crime scene, while authorities said they recovered the gun from a woman with links to Hernandez nearly a year later.
Not even corroborating testimony from Brooke Wilcox, the mother of Bradley’s child, could convince jurors that Hernandez killed de Abreu and Furtado.
Wilcox told jurors that Hernandez and Bradley arrived at her Hartford apartment about two hours after the killings. She said a distressed Bradley told her, “this crazy mother [expletive] just did some stupid [expletive].”
But Sullivan suggested that Bradley used a combination of bribes and fear to convince Wilcox to lie for him. She conceded that Bradley provided her with thousands of dollars from prison and that she had taken out a restraining order against him.
She said Bradley made child support payments with legitimate income he derived from a trucking company.
Sullivan scoffed at the notion, asking Wilcox if the company “truck[ed] marijuana and cocaine.”
Bradley also failed to convince jurors that Hernandez tried to silence him about the killings by shooting him in Florida in February 2013.
Jurors acquitted Hernandez of a witness intimidation charge stemming from that alleged shooting, which Bradley said occurred after a night of heavy partying at a South Florida strip club.
Bradley testified that he and Hernandez visited Tootsie’s Cabaret with other men on the night of February 12, 2013, and that he and Hernandez argued about splitting a $10,000 tab the group ran up in a VIP area.
As night gave way to early morning, Bradley testified, he argued with Hernandez again on the ride back from the club, asking the driver to turn around so he could retrieve his phone.
Hernandez vetoed the idea, and a despondent Bradley fell asleep, only to wake up later in the back seat to find “Mr. Hernandez pointing a gun in my face,” he testified.
Bradley said Hernandez fired and helped another man shove him out of the vehicle, leaving him for dead in a parking lot in Riviera Beach, Fla.
But Baez pointed to ballistics evidence that he said contradicted Bradley’s account of being shot inside a vehicle. He also said Bradley may have hidden a firearm in a grassy area near the lot, even though a smiling Bradley insisted, “I didn’t have a gun.”
Throughout the trial, family members of de Abreu and Furtado maintained a constant presence in courtroom 906.
They cried as they heard harrowing details of their loved ones’ final moments, and as jurors viewed crime scene photos of the injuries that killed the young men, who worked overnight cleaning offices.
Hernandez also had his supporters, including Jenkins-Hernandez, who attended several days of testimony before she took the stand herself.
Suffolk First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan grew increasingly frustrated when Jenkins-Hernandez said she could not recall key details of the case, including a phone call she received from Hernandez minutes after the double slaying.
Jenkins-Hernandez stunned courtroom observers when she described a routine where she and her fiance moved in separate circles, at one point telling Haggan that she “stayed in the room and did what I had to do.”
Jurors also heard revealing grand jury testimony from Jenkins-Hernandez, who told the earlier panel, “I learned to keep my mouth shut in certain situations. . . . I played my role.”
Her fallen fiancee, whose career highlights included a Super Bowl touchdown and a $40 million contract he signed one month after the double murder, will continue playing a role he has grown used to --- that of a maximum security inmate at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley.
But while Hernandez remains incarcerated for the foreseeable future, there were reminders throughout the trial of his former standing as a celebrated pro athlete.
Jurors at one point heard from Deonte Thompson, Hernandez’s former college teammate who now plays for the Chicago Bears.
Thompson refused to shun Hernandez on the witness stand, telling the jury “that’s my guy.”
When he stepped down, Thompson tapped his chest as he walked by Hernandez, in a gesture of solidarity.
Thompson quickly exited the courtroom, free to return to life as an NFL wide receiver, with all its attendant perks.
Hernandez, meanwhile, hugged his attorneys before he was led outside the courtroom, where correctional officers waited to escort him back to prison.
The state’s highest court will automatically review his Bristol County conviction.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...trial-start/FvbRSR9XtY1APZ5EnLnwtL/story.html
