Hernandez’s attorney rips state’s witness testimony
Cross-examination slated today
The Miami legal shark Aaron Hernandez hired to help him beat a doublemurder rap punched several holes in his accuser’s story while warming up for today’s crucial crossexamination of the man who says he was in the car when the disgraced former Patriot allegedly pulled the trigger.
During a testy exchange yesterday, attorney Jose Baez accused Alexander Bradley of concocting the motive for the July 16, 2012, murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado — a spilled drink — out of a prior spat that Baez said Hernandez resolved very differently: He bought the clumsy offender another cocktail.
“Mr. Bradley, this whole spilled drink incident is something you completely made up, isn’t it?” Baez railed at Bradley. “You’re using a story from another night ... aren’t you, sir?”
“Not correct,” Bradley replied.
In a second courtroom bombshell, Baez produced a photograph jurors have heard about, but until yesterday not seen, of Hernandez appearing to flash a peace sign as he poses at Cure with a beaming fan, some two hours before the murders.
Bradley claimed he knew nothing about the meet-and-greet in a private room at the nightclub and that it must have happened when he and Hernandez were apart. But timestamped club surveillance video Baez showed jurors indicates Bradley and Hernandez were only in Cure for nine minutes, meaning Hernandez also had to fit in to that time frame ordering two drinks he’s shown leaving with and Bradley’s version of the spilled-drink clash on the dance floor with Abreu.
Bradley, 34, a convicted gunslinger and drug dealer who is called “Rocky” by his family members, was unflappable through seven hours of accusations and mockery as the defense worked to persuade jurors it was he who killed Abreu and Furtado, not the oncebeloved Patriot.
Earlier in the trial’s 14th day of testimony, it was Hernandez, 27, who could be seen struggling to stifle a laugh after prosecutors presented a series of photographs re-enacting how they propose the 6-foot, 1-inch former football star was able to shoot two men in a car with deadly accuracy by straddling Bradley in the driver’s seat while kneeling on the front passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner and leaning out Bradley’s window.
Bradley said the photos were “generally consistent” with how Hernandez murdered the two immigrants at a South End stoplight.
Hernandez is also facing a witness intimidation charge for allegedly shooting Bradley in the face in Florida seven months after the murders.
Bradley is serving a fiveyear sentence for shooting up a Hartford, Conn., nightclub in 2014.