Hernandez prison discipline detailed
Aaron Hernandez fought, served as a lookout, received a neck tattoo and stole an inmate’s calling card shortly after his arrival at a maximum security Massachusetts prison in April 2015.
The disciplinary records obtained by USA TODAY Sports from Souza- Baranowski Correctional Center, the same facility where he was found hanged last month, show 25 alleged violations over an eight- day span in May 2015, shortly after he was convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd.
“You ain’t got ( expletive) on me ( expletive),” Hernandez told corrections officers after his first prison fight. “You just making up ( expletive).”
Hernandez was checked out by medical personnel and put in restrictive confinement when he continued his verbal barrage.
“This place ain’t ( expletive) to me,” Hernandez said. “I’ll run this place and keep running ( expletive). Prison ain’t ( expletive) to me.”
Hernandez had 78 disciplinary offenses spread across 12 incidents during his nearly two years at Souza- Baranowski Correctional Center, the majority of which took place during his first three months at the facility in Shirley, Mass.
“When people first enter custody, they need to make their bones,” Larry Levine, founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants and a man who served 10 years in a federal prison, told USA TODAY Sports. “They need to create a reputation that will carry them through their time in cus- tody. Hernandez was probably being tested by the other inmates. By becoming a management and disciplinary problem, he showed that he was willing to stand up to staff and the inmate population, potentially anyone who got in his way.”
At the disciplinary hearings that followed, Hernandez pleaded guilty or was found guilty by a hearing officer of 14 charges. None of the incidents was forwarded to prosecutors.
Hernandez fought three times, according to the prison records.
Levine, however, said the fact that Hernandez served as a lookout early in his stint was just as noteworthy. “No one in any prison respects a rat,” Levine said. “By acting as a lookout, he was tested to see if he could keep his mouth shut and be trusted.”
One of the most serious altercations came in August 2015 after a new inmate attempted to shake Hernandez’s hand.
“Hernandez struck ( name redacted) with a closed fist to the face and both men engage ( sic) in a physical altercation,” a corrections officer wrote in the report of the incident. “The combatants ignored several direct orders to cease their actions and chemical agent was utilized to separate the inmates.”
Hernandez closed out 2015 with his ninth incident that year: possession of a weapon that was discovered in a search of his cell Dec. 3. Corrections officers found a nearly 6- inch piece of metal that had been sharpened into a knife. The weapon had a cloth handle and tether so it could be attached to the wrist. He received 15 days in solitary confinement — the maximum under state guidelines — and lost access to the facility’s canteen for 90 days.
He had three other incidents, a stretch broken up by his trial on double- murder charges. After he was acquitted at that trial in April, he returned to Souza- Baranowski Correctional Center, where he resumed serving his life sentence for the 2013 murder of Lloyd.
There were no documented infractions since October, when Hernandez was found to have locked himself in the cell with another inmate, something not permitted under prison guidelines because it “disrupts the normal operation of the facility.”
The last time corrections officers responded to his cell was in the early hours of April 19 as he was found hanged with a bedsheet. His death at 27 was ruled a suicide days later.