Hernandez owed $2M when killed self, say filings
Player’s home offered for $1M
Aaron Hernandez was $2 million in debt when he hanged himself April 19 in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, according to new court filings — the lion’s share owed to the celebrity lawyers who days earlier had cleared his name of a double homicide.
Meanwhile, a new offer is in play to purchase the former New England Patriot’s manse in North Attleboro. A private buyer has struck a purchase and sale agreement to unload Hernandez’s “deteriorating” 11-room home for the bargain price of $1 million “as is,” according to documents filed Friday in Bristol Probate and Family Court by attorney John G. Dugan, the estate’s court-appointed representative.
Dugan is petitioning the Taunton court for license to sell the property. The agreement expires Oct. 31, if a closing does not occur before then.
Hernandez inked a five-year, $40 million contract with the Pats in 2012, yet died without a will behind bars at age 27 for Odin L. Lloyd’s murder. His 4-year-old daughter is the sole heir to an estate Dugan reports is only worth $202,575.
The assets he lists include a 2005 Hummer H2 valued at $19,200, a $15,146 annuity from the NFL Player Benefits Program and $168,230 amassed in his NFL Player 401(k) savings. That money, Dugan notes, falls far short of satisfying “the outstanding debts and claims” mounting against Hernandez’s estate.
Those obligations include $1.7 million Dugan estimates Hernandez owed Miami super attorney Jose Baez and his high-powered associates for their work defending him against murder charges for the 2012 shooting deaths of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
Baez filed a $20 million federal lawsuit under seal in Boston Thursday against the Patriots and the National Football League on behalf of Hernandez’s daughter and fiancee, claiming a Boston University study of Hernandez’s brain uncovered “severe” injury known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Baez said it’s possible the head trauma Hernandez allegedly suffered playing ball led to his committing suicide.
The new offer on Hernandez’s home is the fourth and “most favorable” made on the house at 22 Ronald C. Meyer Drive in the posh Westwood Estates community, the filings reveal. Dugan told the court the house has been empty for nine months, is in “deteriorating condition” and is surrounded by grounds “strewn with overgrown plants and weeds.”
Hernandez purchased the home in 2012 for $1.3 million just months before police infamously hauled him out the front door in handcuffs for Lloyd’s murder. It features a three-car garage, a jetted tub in the master bathroom, a gourmet kitchen, ice bath and sauna, and a theater room. It was put on the market in March 2016 for $1.5 million.
Other arrears listed by Dugan include $154,184 Hernandez owed the IRS in income tax, $102,000 owed to the town of North Attleboro in real estate taxes and more than $7,935 a real estate agent took out in loans to pay for repairs and utility bills.
Neither Dugan nor Baez’s firm responded yesterday to requests for comment.