National Football League

Aaron Hernandez felt 'helpless' as police searched his home

Published Sep. 16, 2014 1:38 p.m. ET

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Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez contends in a new court filing that he felt “helpless” and worried for his fiancée and young daughter during a 2013 police search of his mansion — statements he made as part of a flurry of motions aimed at undercutting one of the murder cases he’s facing.

In the sworn statement filed by Hernandez’s legal team he describes being surrounded by officers carrying weapons as they searched his home the day after the murder of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player who was gunned down less than a mile from the player’s home in North Attleboro, Mass.

“I felt helpless in the face of the occupation of my house by the police,” Hernandez said in the statement. “I was also very concerned about what would happen to my fiancée and our baby if I refused to answer their questions. I did not feel free to leave at any time during the search.”

The statement was among a series of motions filed by Hernandez’s lawyers ahead of his trial, scheduled to begin Jan. 9, on murder and weapons charges in Lloyd’s killing. Although two alleged accomplices have also been indicted on murder charges in the case, prosecutors have asserted in open court that Hernandez “orchestrated” Lloyd’s murder because he was upset after an incident a few days earlier at a Boston nightclub.

Neither Hernandez’s attorneys nor prosecutors responded to messages from FOX Sports.

Lloyd, who was gunned down in a secluded field less than a mile from Hernandez’s home, was dating the sister of the star player’s fiancée.

Two alleged accomplices, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace Jr., have also been indicted on murder charges in Lloyd’s death. Prosecutors have not said who they believe fired the fatal shots.

Prosecutors contend that Hernandez summoned Ortiz and Wallace to his home in North Attleboro and made arrangements to pick up Lloyd in the Dorchester section of Boston. The four allegedly then returned to North Attleboro, where Lloyd was killed.

Hernandez separately faces murder and assault charges in a different case — the July 16, 2012, killings of Brian de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, and wounding of a third man at a South Boston intersection. That case is scheduled for trial beginning May 28, although it is likely to be pushed back.

The new filings in the Lloyd case come on the heels of another motion filed earlier this month by Hernandez’s defense team that seeks to throw out evidence taken from Hernandez’s cell phone.

Hernandez’s lawyers contend investigators didn’t have the authority to take the cell phone — despite a judge’s earlier ruling that they did, when they seized it from one of his attorneys.

Their argument: that a search warrant issued the day after Lloyd’s murder allowed the search of Hernandez’s home in North Attleboro and the seizure of the phone — but since it wasn’t located at his house investigators should have obtained a new warrant, one allowing them to search the law firm or the lawyers who had the phone.

The cell phone and text messages sent from and to it are at the crux of prosecutors’ contention that Hernandez “orchestrated” the murder of Lloyd. According to previously filed court documents, they show numerous messages sent from Hernandez’s phone to Ortiz, Wallace and Lloyd.

Judge E. Susan Garsh, who earlier ruled that investigators had the authority to seize the cell phone, has not ruled on the new motion seeking to overturn that decision based on where it was obtained.

That phone is also at the center of the new motions.

Hernandez’s lawyers contend that investigators illegally interrogated him the day after Lloyd’s murder when they executed a search warrant at his home seeking images from his home surveillance system and his cell phone.

The night before, they contend, Hernandez told investigators they would have to talk to his attorneys — and in a later meeting, his lawyers directed officers to make all follow-up inquiries with them. But Hernandez’s lawyers contend in the new motion that when they went to the star player’s home to execute the search warrant, they questioned him about the location of his cell phone and that while doing that “Hernandez was not free to leave, and was effectively in custody during execution of the warrant.”

They also contend that none of the officers read Hernandez his rights.

“At all times,” the lawyers wrote in their motion, “Hernandez was in the presence of an officer, usually more than one. Hernandez was questioned in the absence of counsel about the location of his cell phone and the password for his phone. No Miranda warnings were given to Hernandez prior to or during this interrogation.”

In questioning Hernandez, officers learned that his cell phone was in the custody of one of his attorneys at the offices of Ropes & Gray.

“But for the unwarned and un-counseled statements of the defendant during the execution of the search, police would not have been able to seize the phone from Ropes & Gray,” the lawyers wrote. “Hernandez was asked pointed questions by the police: 'Where is your phone? What is the password for your phone?' They were not chatting about the weather or his rehabilitation from surgery; they were focused on their immediate investigative objectives.”

Hernandez’s sworn statement was included as part of the motion.

“I had told the police the night before that they should direct their questions to my attorneys, but they questioned me anyway,” he said. “I know that my attorneys told the police the night before that they should contact them, not me, with any questions, but the police ignored that, too.”

Hernandez's lawyers are objecting to police's course of action in obtaining evidence from the former football star's home back in 2013.

He then described feeling helpless and worried about his fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, and their daughter.

As for the motions on the Hummer, the apartment in Franklin and Hernandez’s home, his lawyers contend that investigators overstepped their bounds.

For instance, they were executing a search warrant at the apartment when they found the keys for the Hummer and activated an alarm, identifying the vehicle outside, according to the motions. Therefore, they argued, the evidence taken from the vehicle was “the fruit of an illegal action by police.”

That warrant for the apartment — which they also argued in the new motions was faulty — did not authorize them to “handle the keys to the Hummer, much less use those keys to activate a remote alarm in order to link it to the Hummer in the parking lot.”

Prosecutors have not filed their responses to the new motions but are expected to in the coming days. Judge Garsh is scheduled to take up the motions at a Sept. 30 hearing.