Man in Pats hat among 64 let go
More than a third of the first 183 jurors vetted to hear the double-murder trial of ex-Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez were excused from the pool yesterday, while out of earshot, the judge was turning up the heat on Cure Lounge to confirm whether video exists of the ex-Pro Bowler crossing paths with his alleged victims.
A woman due to give birth in April, a man told by court officers to remove his Patriots hat, and a selfproclaimed supporter of President Trump were among the prospects who reported to Suffolk Superior Court yesterday ahead of another 200 potential jurors expected today. Several who were packed into the jury pool room craned for a glimpse of Hernandez, 27, who bid them a cheery “good morning.”
Judge Jeffrey A. Locke noted the high-profile nature of the case.
“We expect that many of you may have read or heard or seen something about this case or Mr. Hernandez,” Locke told jurors. He noted Hernandez was “a member of the New England Patriots football team” on the morning of July 16, 2012, when prosecutors say he gunned down Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Teixeira Furtado, 28, in a BMW, firing from the passenger seat of another vehicle, after one of the men accidentally spilled a drink on him at the Cure Lounge in the Theater District. A third man in the BMW was hit by gunfire and survived.
Locke said 64 jurors were sent home for reasons of hardship after conferring privately with him, the trial teams and Hernandez. Eight more who claimed they could not serve on a jury for four to six weeks were not excused and remain in play.
At a separate hearing yesterday, Locke gave Cure’s management seven days to allow Hernandez’s defense team to conduct a forensic exam of the club’s surveillance system, and to produce purchase, operational and maintenance logs for the equipment, as well as any records of Boston and state police requests to inspect it as part of their investigation. Citing conflicting statements by prosecutors and the defense, Locke further ordered that a Boston police detective and a representative of Cure testify at a pretrial hearing by month’s end so he can get to the bottom of whether interior video from the night of the killings exists — and if investigators ever tried to get their hands on it.