Former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was found not guilty of double murder on Friday, as a jury acquitted him of the charges that he had killed Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. He was found guilty of unlawful possession of a gun, and the judge added four to five years in prison to the life sentence he is currently serving for the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2013.
Hernandez was also acquitted of shooting his former friend Alexander Bradley in the face. Bradley served as the key witness for the prosecution in exchange for immunity on the case, and asserted that he was driving the car the night Hernandez shot the two men. He had accused Hernandez of shooting him in the face and leaving him in a parking lot after Bradley made a joke to him about police looking for him because of “effed up stuff you did in Boston last summer.”
According to the Associated Press, Hernandez’s defense team spent much of the trial calling into question the character of Bradley, a former drug dealer, and asserted it was Bradley, not Hernandez, that shot the two men in 2012. Bradley’s testimony stated that Hernandez became enraged after the men spilled a drink on him and eventually opened fire on their car later in the night.
The jury spent 37 hours deliberating before coming to a non-guilty verdict.
