FALL RIVER, Mass. — Former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez tried to buy his cancer-stricken cousin’s silence during the Odin Lloyd murder investigation, but was lying when he told her he had created trust funds to provide for her two children, prosecutors said Wednesday.
“Telling her she’s going to have money and then not doing it — he’s engaged in every scheme possible to ensure her silence,” said Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Patrick Bomberg.
Hernandez, 25, was arrested on murder charges in June 2013. In a jailhouse phone call less than a month later, he told his Bristol, Conn. cousin, Tanya Singleton, that he deposited money into accounts for her young children, Jano and Edward, to access when they turn 18.
“It already started off at $100,000 for them, do you know what I’m saying, I think about $75 a piece or something like that and every seven years it doubles,” Hernandez said in the conversation, which is transcribed in court documents.
“He says, ‘I set up and account,’ and lo and behold he didn’t,” Bomberg said. “He told her this to secure her continued loyalty.”
Less than a week after the call, Singleton was incarcerated for refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating Lloyd’s shooting. In an earlier phone call referenced in court filings, Hernandez had told her, “don’t say nothing.”
Jurors were not in court Wednesday when Bomberg made the accusations during a hearing on a defense motion asking the court to prohibit prosecutors from introducing 11 jailhouse phone calls into evidence at trial. At the conclusion of the hearing, Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh said she intends to allow some of the calls to come into evidence and would identify those in a forthcoming decision.
Singleton, 39, has pleaded guilty to criminal contempt — a charge arising from her refusal to answer questions before the grand jury. She also is charged as an accessory in the case, accused of helping one of Hernandez’s alleged accomplices flee to Georgia after the slaying.
Defense attorneys characterize Singleton as a close relative of Hernandez who acted as a mother figure to him during his high school years. Singleton is suffering from stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, and Hernandez’s lawyers said that the former Patriots tight end was concerned for her health.
Hernandez is accused of killing Lloyd with Wallace and Bristol, Connecticut, native Carlos Ortiz. Under a legal theory known as joint venture, prosecutors can bring murder charges against all three men without having to name one as the gunman.
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