HEAT TURNED UP ON STAR WITNESS
Hernandez defense claims Bradley tried to pivot from civil suit to extortion
The state’s star witness against Aaron Hernandez testified yesterday that he considered telling grand jurors investigating the 2013 murder that earned the former New England Patriot a lifetime behind bars that he couldn’t remember “anything” about who’d shot him in the face in the hopes of extorting the fallen NFL star instead.
“I was trying to figure out how I could go to the grand jury and not have him charged criminally,” Alexander Bradley said. “I wanted my civil case resolved.”
But Bradley had a problem. The convicted felon, who for two straight days has deftly fended off an attack on his credibility by Hernandez’s celebrity lawyer, had already accused the disgraced Pro Bowl tight end of nearly killing him in a federal lawsuit.
In a text message defense attorney Jose Baez showed to jurors yesterday, Bradley asked his lawyer if he risked a perjury charge if he dropped the civil action and, “I tell the court the TRUTH about me not recalling ANYTHING.” The text was sent days after Hernandez was arrested for executing Odin L. Lloyd in a North Attleboro industrial park.
The civil lawsuit was privately settled last year out of court. Hernandez, 27, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
But Baez, who has painted Bradley as a self-serving opportunist, called the cooperation agreement he struck to testify against Hernandez “the deal of a lifetime.” He has also asserted that it was Bradley, 34, who gunned down clubgoers Daniel de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, at a South End stoplight over a drug deal gone bad — while Hernandez sat helplessly in the passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner after a night out in Boston.
“I know we know you wanted to kill him, too,” Baez said of his client during Bradley’s cross-examination.
“Yes,” Bradley agreed, prompting Baez to fire back, “Because you’re a killer.”
Bradley will return to the stand for a fourth time this morning. He testified Monday that his “best friend” ambushed and killed the office cleaners after Abreu spilled a drink on Hernandez at Cure Lounge. He told Baez yesterday he was “OK” with Hernandez ordering him to follow the victims’ car “because I never expected Mr. Hernandez to shoot those individuals.”
Nor, Baez pointed out to the jury, did Bradley do anything to stop it.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Locke briefly stopped the trial yesterday after learning that someone had posted on Reddit.com that a juror was commenting about the case online. After an investigation, all 15 jurors continued their service.