WITNESS’S PAST EYED
Attorneys for disgraced former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez may be building a case against a potentially damning witness to the South End double murder he stands accused of, according to a new filing by Suffolk prosecutors. Alexander Bradley, a former friend of Hernandez’s, is expected to be a key witness in the case and was allegedly present July 16, 2012, when Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado were gunned down. In a Monday filing, prosecutors asked Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke to bar any allegations of Bradley’s prior bad acts from trial. “The Commonwealth anticipates that the defendant may seek to introduce such evidence for an improper purpose: that is, to argue that Bradley — and thus, not the defendant — is a bad actor and had the propensity to commit the crimes for which the defendant is charged,” lead prosecutor Patrick Haggan wrote.
On top of the murder charges, Hernandez has been hit with a witness intimidation charge for allegedly shooting Bradley in the face in Florida Feb. 13, 2013. According to court documents, Bradley is the only person to directly witness the South End murders and the Florida shooting that left him without a right eye.
But Bradley comes with some baggage. Last month, he was sentenced to five years in prison by a Connecticut judge for shooting up a Hartford bar in 2014. No one was hurt in the shooting, and instead of going through a trial, Bradley opted to plead out.
Prosecutors want to keep that information from jurors, arguing that “any efforts to tarnish the witness’ character should be excluded unless and until the defendant articulates a proper purpose to admit such evidence.”
Bradley was a witness in Hernandez’s first murder trial, in which the former tight end was convicted of murdering former semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd in a North Attleboro industrial lot in 2013. Hernandez is currently serving life behind bars without the possibility of parole for that crime.
Meanwhile, Locke threw out Hernandez’s third pitch to postpone the Boston double-murder trial, saying that the six-attorney defense team has had plenty of time to prepare for a case that “is not particularly unusual” and not “overly complex.”
“It involves a single defendant and discrete events, rather than a lengthy series of criminal acts,” Locke wrote in yesterday’s order. “There is a single witness, Alexander Bradley, providing direct evidence of the defendant’s commission of the homicides and of shooting Bradley, and Bradley’s account of events is well-documented and known to counsel.”