Ex-NFL player Hernandez is acquitted in 2 slayings
Former NFL tight end Aaron Hernandez, already serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder, was acquitted Friday in a 2012 double slaying prosecutors said was fueled by his anger over a drink spilled at a nightclub.
The former New England Patriots tight end choked back tears as the verdicts were read in court. A few moments later, he looked back at his fiancee and nodded somberly as relatives of the victims sobbed loudly. A defense attorney hugged him.
After six days of deliberations, the jury found Hernandez not guilty of first-degree murder in the killings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado but convicted him of unlawful possession of a gun. The judge sentenced him to an additional four to five years in prison, separate from his existing life sentence.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said the victims’ families were devastated by the verdicts and by the defense’s portrayal of the men as “gang bangers” and “drug dealers.”
“These were two hardworking, humble, Cape Verdean immigrants,” Conley said. “It was unnecessary, and it was wrong, and it shouldn’t have been done.”
Conley said prosecutors and the families take solace in the fact Hernandez is serving a life sentence in the killing of Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional football player who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee. Prosecutors in the double murder trial weren’t allowed to mention his conviction in Lloyd’s case.
Hernandez, 27, played for the Patriots from 2010 to 2012. He was cut from the team shortly after he was arrested in Lloyd’s killing in June 2013.
Carew transplant from NFL player
Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew received a new heart and kidney from the late NFL player Konrad Reuland in what is believed to be the first such transplant involving pro athletes, it was revealed Friday.
Carew underwent the procedure last December and met Reuland’s family in March after mutual friends connected Reuland’s death with news of Carew’s transplant on Dec. 16. Reuland, a former 49er, had died four days earlier after a ruptured brain aneurysm at age 29.
Reuland attended middle school in Southern California with Carew’s children, and he met Carew when he was 11.
“The whole thing is just unbelievable,” Carew told American Heart Association News. “I’ve been given a second chance so I’m going to take advantage of it, and I’ve got another family.”
Colleges: Utah scored 11 runs in the second inning and went on to a 16-8 baseball win over visiting Cal (15-17, 7-7 Pac-12).
Stanford men’s golfer Maverick McNealy was awarded the Byron Nelson Award, which recognizes a graduating senior’s collegiate academic and golf career as well as his character and integrity.
Washington hired Jody Wynn as the women’s basketball coach to replace Mike Neighbors, who led the team to the Final Four in 2016 and left for Arkansas last month.
Wynn spent the last eight seasons at Long Beach State. The 49ers nearly pulled off one of the NCAA Tournament’s biggest upsets last month, narrowly falling to No. 2 seed Oregon State 56-55.
The NCAA endorsed a football recruiting rules overhaul that will allow high school football players to sign with colleges as early as December and put a two-year waiting period on Bowl Subdivision teams from hiring people close to a recruit.