Witness: Small spill ends in big kill
But Aaron’s ex-pal to get grilled today
Alexander Bradley — the prosecution’s star witness in the doublemurder case against fallen New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez — finally took the stand yesterday and accused his former friend of cold-bloodedly gunning down two men over a spilled drink in a downtown Boston bar.
But Hernandez’s lawyers, who hope to get their first crack at crossexamining the 34-year-old Bradley today, plan to show he was the real hair-trigger hothead in the friendship, with a propensity for shooting off his mouth and whatever firearm was in reach.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Locke will permit the defense to try to impeach Bradley’s credibility by informing jurors the Connecticut father of three had just begun serving a five-year sentence for shooting up a Hartford nightclub in 2014 after he was shot in the groin quarreling with another man over money.
Locke will rule this morning on whether surveillance footage of that gunfight, which defense cocounsel Jose Baez and Ronald Sullivan Jr. turned over to him last night, is fair fodder or too prejudicial to the state’s case against Hernandez.
The judge has already barred jurors from hearing the nickname Hernandez used for Bradley on his phone contact list months after the double-homicide: “Lies.”
Bradley is testifying with a grant of immunity from Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office. He testified that he first met Hernandez in 2009, one year before he and fellow tight end Rob Gronkowski were drafted by the New England Patriots.
His first day of testimony yesterday zeroed in on Hernandez, who Bradley said shot to death Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado because Abreu accidentally splashed a drink on him while dancing.
At one point, Locke sent the jurors out of the courtroom when Furtado’s stricken mother could be heard sobbing and gasping for air.
Bradley said Hernandez’s July 16, 2012, run-in with Abreu erupted over “just a few drops” of spilled booze and lasted “maybe a minute,” but it led to nearly two hours of roaming the Theater District while Hernandez stewed and stalled, waiting for Abreu and his four friends to emerge from the Cure Lounge.
With Bradley at the wheel of Hernandez’s Toyota 4Runner, he said an enraged Hernandez commanded him to catch up to the group’s BMW stopped at a traffic light at Herald Street and Shawmut Avenue in the South End.
Bradley said Hernandez pulled a revolver out of the glove box, told him to roll down his window, “put his hand on my chest and said, ‘Watch out.’”
He said Hernandez twice yelled, “Yo!’ at the victims until he got their attention, then called out, “What’s up now, (expletive)?” before opening fire.
In the weeks that followed, Bradley said Hernandez claimed to be tormented by nightmares about the slayings, but he also gave himself a nickname: Double A, presumably for the double slaying.
When Bradley’s testimony resumes this morning, prosecutor Patrick Haggan will continue a live reading of 479 text messages the pair exchanged between March 28 and June 11, 2013, after Bradley claims Hernandez took his right eye in a Florida shooting intended to silence him forever.
Bradley said his plan was to extort Hernandez for whatever he could get, rather than rat him out to police.
In one text, Hernandez asks Bradley why he was trying to ruin him.
“All I did is be there for you and love you,” he said.
Bradley told the court he chose his words carefully before responding, “You owe me, Double A.”