By the end of his second season, he inked a five-year contract extension worth $40 million. But less than a year later, he was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Odin Lloyd. Two hours after his arrest on June 26, 2013, the Patriots dropped him from the team. Two of Hernandez’s closest associates are co-defendants in the Lloyd case.
Evidence collected in Lloyd’s death led to two more murder charges against Hernandez in a separate case in Boston. He is accused of shooting Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in July 2012, allegedly over a spilled drink.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial in the shooting death of Lloyd begins in January. A May 2015 trial in the Boston case has been postponed pending the completion of the Lloyd trial.
Here is a primer on some of the names you might be hearing about during Hernandez’s trials.
Inside the case against Aaron Hernandez
Odin Lloyd
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Andrew Booker shared a jail unit with Aaron Hernandez. The two allegedly got into a jail fight, and Hernandez was indicted in Booker’s assault.
The prosecution
District Attorney Samuel Sutter, who had been leading the prosecution against Hernandez, is the newly elected mayor of Fall River, where the trial is being held. Assistant District Attorneys William McCauley and Patrick Bomberg are on the team leading the case against Hernandez. “Probably my career … will be defined more by this case than all of the other things we’ve done,” Sutter has said.
The defense
Attorneys James Sultan, Michael Fee and Charles Rankin are handling Hernandez’s defense. Rankin says “not one shred of evidence has been presented yet.” He says he is confident Hernandez will be exonerated.
