Aaron Hernandez Feature

THIS IS THE WAY THE CASE CRUMBLES PICTURE THIS: ACCUSED MURDERER AARON HERNANDEZ, ONCE CONSIDERED A LOCK TO GET LIFE, WALKS AWAY A FREE MAN.

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E S P N T H E M A G A Z I N E / 0 3 . 1 7. 1 4 / SUBJECTS

MURDER, PERJURY, COVER-UP

WRITTEN BY

L. CHRISTOPHER SMITH

HERNANDEZ’S PATH TO AN ACQUITTAL

06.14.2013 At the Boston club Rumor, Hernandez and Odin Lloyd argue.

According to a search warrant, a bouncer hears someone “spill the beans” that night about Hernandez’s alleged role in the 2012 shooting deaths of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado.

Officials believe Lloyd knew Hernandez was involved and speculate that might have been the reason for Lloyd’s slaying on June 17. But prosecutors will need solid proof of this to introduce it as a motive in the Lloyd trial.

When the prosecution charged Aaron Hernandez with murder in June, Bristol County (Mass.)

Assistant DA William McCauley proclaimed, with the bravado of a man having no doubt he could leave a jury doubtless: “The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming.”

When you think about it, McCauley’s statement wasn’t all that different from Hernandez’s makin’-it-rain touchdown celebration in the NFL. He was declaring, in no uncertain terms, “We got this.” And across the country, the always-captive celebrity murder trial audience is still nodding their heads.

But eight months after the arrest of Hernandez, legal experts tell The Mag that the former Patriots tight end could very well walk rather than be convicted of firstdegree murder in the death of Odin Lloyd. This is how a conspiracy of silence, a vanished gun and an unclear motive have complicated a seemingly open-and-shut case.

ZIPPED LIPS Because of self-interest, loyalty or fear of retribution, members of Hernandez’s inner circle have, at best, invoked their collective right to remain silent. At worst, they have conspired with each other to keep the details of Lloyd’s homicide under wraps.

The only person willing to flip on Hernandez? Carlos Ortiz. A small-time crook

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06.18.2013 Per Hernandez’s order, fiancée Shayanna Jenkins allegedly puts a box from their home in a trash bag and tosses it in a Dumpster. Police had been informed that Hernandez stored his guns in a box.

with a history of PCP abuse, Ortiz was far from an ideal eyewitness, but for a while, he spun a credible tale. Hard evidence shows that on June 16, he and Ernest Wallace, another of Hernandez’s pals from his hometown of Bristol, Conn., were summoned by Hernandez to his North Attleborough, Mass., home. From there, the three men picked up Lloyd in Boston and drove to an industrial park less than a mile from Hernandez’s pad. But this is where the hard trail ends.

Ortiz initially said he awoke from a nap in the backseat when Hernandez, Wallace and Lloyd exited the car. After a series of gunshots rang out, Wallace and Hernandez got back into the car without Lloyd and sped off into the night. Ortiz’s story allegedly remained consistent over his first half-dozen interviews with police, but he changed his tune in the fall and said Wallace never exited the car at the industrial park, directly implicating Hernandez. In January prosecutors, who’d first shrugged off Ortiz’s revised testimony, admitted the obvious: Ortiz was “completely unreliable” and wouldn’t be called to the stand.

A MISSING PIECE Despite a multistate search that included a literal fishing expedition in a Bristol pond, investigators still haven’t found what could be the most damning piece of evidence against Hernandez—the murder weapon. Without that, the only leg the prosecution’s case stands on is a mound of circumstantial evidence.

Much of it seems solid, says Gerry Leone, a former district attorney of Middlesex County (Mass.) who convicted the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid. There’s the home security tape that appears to show Hernandez holding a .45-caliber Glock—the gun investigators believe was used to kill Lloyd— hours before and minutes after the shooting.

There’s also surveillance footage that tracks Hernandez’s movements that night, from the time the three men picked up Lloyd in Boston

06.19.2013 Alexander Bradley, who was with Hernandez the night of the two 2012 homicides, files a civil suit against Hernandez in Florida that alleges Hernandez shot him in the face in February 2013. The shooting resulted in Bradley’s losing an eye. Despite the incident, Bradley has shown little interest in cooperating with the grand jury investigating whether Hernandez was involved in the 2012 slayings.

until just after they entered the industrial park.

And police traced the car the men were driving, a silver Nissan Altima, back to a rental agency where they recovered a shell casing that matched the ones found near Lloyd’s body.

While these bread crumbs make for a nice trail of evidence, they hardly comprise a slam dunk case. As Leone points out: “I don’t know if it’s enough to find him guilty of first-degree murder. The defense could argue, Yeah, he was at the scene of the crime, and he knew someone had a gun. But he didn’t know anyone would be killed. And you have no evidence to show that he did.”

NOBODY KNOWS WHY With no eyewitnesses and no gun, convincing a jury of Hernandez’s motive might be the only way to win a conviction. “If it’s all circumstantial that he was involved in the murder, then a jury will want a motive,” says Chris Dearborn, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston. “The act is too random and vicious without a reason.”

The theory being floated by investigators is that Lloyd was killed because he knew about Hernandez’s role in a 2012 double homicide outside a Boston club called Cure Lounge. Some background: On July 16, 2012, Hernandez and a convicted drug dealer named Alexander Bradley were at Cure. So too was a separate group that included two men from the African islands of Cape Verde. Later outside the club, they were all in a BMW stopped at a traffic light when a gray Toyota 4Runner pulled up beside them. Someone inside the SUV opened fire, killing the two Cape Verdeans, Daniel Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28.

Surveillance footage has since surfaced showing Hernandez and Bradley getting into the 4Runner before the shooting occurred, and police discovered what they believe to be the same SUV a year later, covered in cobwebs, at the Bristol home of Hernandez’s uncle, Andres “Tito” Valderrama.

06.25.2013 Police interview Carlos Ortiz, Hernandez’s friend and witness to Lloyd’s death, and he implicates Hernandez as the shooter.

A grand jury has been investigating Hernandez’s potential involvement in the crime, but to introduce the double shooting at the Lloyd trial, Dearborn says, “you would need an eyewitness who could literally say that [Hernandez] had a gun in his hand and I saw him pull the trigger.” Given that the grand jury seems no closer to handing down an indictment, chances are such witnesses haven’t materialized. And even if they do, prosecutors would still have to prove that Lloyd’s knowledge of the double homicide is what precipitated his execution.

JUDGMENT CALLS As it stands now, the holes in the prosecution’s case are so plentiful that, according to Dearborn, Hernandez’s star-studded legal team could opt not to call a single witness during the trial. The goal? To simply let the circumstantial evidence create the doubt needed for an acquittal.

“We don’t have a confession, we don’t have an eyewitness and we don’t have a murder weapon,” says Dearborn. “You’re talking about sending someone to prison for the rest of his life, and you’re being told he killed somebody, but we have no idea why.”

Given everything working in Hernandez’s favor, his legal team won’t be inclined to consider any sort of plea deal either. “The defense has plenty to work with,” says Leone.

“It’s a triable case.” So this will end in one of three ways: The prosecution wins a first-degree murder conviction and Hernandez spends the rest of his life in prison; a jury convicts Hernandez on a lesser charge, like accessory to murder or manslaughter; or Hernandez is acquitted and freed.

With every passing day—with each non­ cooperative witness, each failed gun search, each faulty motive—the evidence of Hernandez’s guilt becomes less “overwhelming,” and those second and third outcomes become more likely. It will take more than bravado to bring down Aaron Hernandez.

06.30.2013 T.L. Singleton (husband of Hernandez’s cousin Tanya Cummings-Singleton) dies in a crash in Farmington, Conn. Closely connected to all three men suspected of the Lloyd slaying, he was being sought by police.

08.01.2013 Despite an offer of immunity, CummingsSingleton refuses to testify before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating Hernandez’s role in Lloyd’s death and is charged with contempt.

09.19.2013 Ernest Wallace, allegedly the third man present when Lloyd was killed, is arraigned on accessory charges. Thus far, he has shown no willingness to flip on Hernandez. Prosecutors say Hernandez was Wallace’s sole source of financial support, paying his bills and providing him with a rental car, the Nissan Altima used the night of Lloyd’s death.

09.26.2013 At Wallace’s bail hearing, prosecutors disclose key changes to Ortiz’s testimony. At the time, they express no concern over the credibility of their sole eyewitness.

12.03.2013 Jenkins, Hernandez’s fiancée, is charged with perjury after allegedly lying 29 times to a grand jury. Prosecutors’ chief concern: the box they say she disposed of on Hernandez’s behalf. Investigators believe it might have contained the Glock used to kill Lloyd. They have yet to locate that gun after a multistate search.

01.31.2014 Paperwork filed by prosecutors states that Ortiz is “completely unreliable” as a witness and will not be called to the stand at Hernandez’s trial.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE FAMILY

LOVE

ERNEST WALLACE

FRIEND

A. Lived in Hernandez’s flophouse in Franklin, Mass. … allegedly at scene of Lloyd’s killing.

B. Accessory to the murder of Lloyd.

NAME A. Key facts B. Criminal charges

ALIVE

DEAD

JAILENE DIAZ-RAMOS

JOHN ALCORN A. Singleton’s cousin … denied that gun discovered in Diaz-Ramos’ car was his; weapon matched casings found at 2012 double homicide … testified before double murder grand jury.

B. No charges filed.

A. Gun was found in her trunk; she said it belonged to Alcorn.

B. Three weapons-related crimes.

CARLOS ORTIZ A. Was at Lloyd homicide scene … lone eyewitness to flip on Hernandez … won’t be asked to testify after changing his story.

B. Accessory to the murder of Lloyd.

ALEXANDER BRADLEY A. Was with Hernandez the night of 2012 Boston double slaying … sprayed a Hartford club with 11 bullets after being shot in the thigh this February.

B. C riminal possession and use of a firearm.

T.L. SINGLETON

ANDRES “TITO” VALDERRAMA

A. Tanya’s husband … sold drugs with Ernest Wallace, according to prosecutors … died in car crash four days after Hernandez’s arrest.

PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE

A. Hernandez’s uncle … in the days after Lloyd’s death, housed Ortiz and Wallace in his Bristol, Conn., pad … the SUV police believe was used in the 2012 Boston double homicide was found in his garage.

B. No charges filed.

TABITHA PERRY A. Singleton’s ex-girlfriend … survived Singleton’s fatal car crash … died of accidental overdose on Dec. 16, 2013.

TANYA CUMMINGS-SINGLETON

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A. Hernandez’s cousin … in the days after Lloyd’s homicide, drove Wallace to Georgia and bought him a bus ticket to Florida, where he was eventually arrested.

B. Conspiracy to commit accessory after the fact; criminal contempt.

SHAYANNA JENKINS A. Hernandez’s fiancée … disposed of box that prosecutors believe may have contained the gun that killed Lloyd.

B. One count of perjury.

ODIN LLOYD A. Homicide victim … bonded with Hernandez after Lloyd began dating Jenkins’ sister.

illustrations by JOEL KIMMEL PHOTO REFERENCE: AP IMAGES (6); BRISTOL POLICE DEPARTMENT (ALCORN, SINGLETON, PERRY ); PLAINVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT (DIAZ-RAMOS); LANDOV (JENKINS)