National Football League

Judge hears arguments in ex-Patriot Hernandez's bid to suppress evidence

Published Sep. 30, 2014 11:49 a.m. ET

foxsports

It is the one place in a courtroom no attorney wants to be — the witness stand — but for four hours Tuesday a prosecutor found himself there, answering painstaking inquiries about the events leading to the seizure of football star Aaron Hernandez’s cell phone.

Hernandez’s lawyers are fighting to make sure a jury never hears about that phone or the evidence it contains, which prosecutors have used to bolster their assertion that the former New England Patriots tight end “orchestrated” Odin Lloyd’s murder on June 17, 2013.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Bomberg fielded question after tedious question — some from a colleague, some from an adversary — as Hernandez’s lawyers sought to convince a judge that police detectives and prosecutors acted improperly to obtain that phone.

Bomberg grew exasperated at times as Charles Rankin, one of three attorneys representing Hernandez, fished for information that could bolster his argument that the phone was improperly seized.

“On the substance of Mr. Hernandez … is there anything else that I haven’t covered?” Bomberg asked at one point as Rankin pursued a series of questions about whether he recalled any other “substantive interaction” with the player’s lawyers. “I’m just — I’m somewhat at a loss. I’m just not sure what you’re asking me.”

At another point, the open-ended questions sparked a battle of wills.

“I’m just having a hard time, Mr. Rankin, understanding what it is that you’re asking me,” Bomberg said.

“I’m just trying to see,” Rankin responded, “if there’s anything else that you recall, on the subject matter that we’ve been going at for 2 hours and 45 minutes?”

Bomberg paused, then answered, “I don’t know, Mr. Rankin, but it would help me if you would just ask me a specific question.”

But on key points, Bomberg asserted that the defense had it wrong — that, for instance, he learned the phone was in the possession of Hernandez’s lawyers not from the then-football star, but from one of his attorneys.

The point could be critical. In their motion seeking to have the phone and its evidence tossed out, Hernandez’s lawyers contend that detectives illegally questioned the player as they executed a search warrant at his North Attleboro, Mass., home, learning then that the Blackberry was in the possession of defense attorneys. Not true, Bomberg testified. Instead, he said it was Hernandez’s own attorney, Michael Fee, who told Bomberg where the phone was located.

Defense attorneys also contend that two search warrants — one for Hernandez’s home and one for the phone itself — weren’t sufficient to support the seizure of the Blackberry, and that detectives and prosecutors should have obtained a warrant for the offices of Ropes & Gray, the Boston law firm where Fee was a partner at the time. Not true, Bomberg testified. Bomberg said a Ropes & Gray attorney turned the phone over in a public lobby — not inside the walls of the law firm — and, in any case, the warrant for the Blackberry authorized its seizure from the lawyers because it was still legally in Hernandez’s control.

According to previously filed court documents, Hernandez’s phone contained evidence of numerous contacts with Lloyd and with two alleged accomplices, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace Jr., in the hours leading up to the murder. Prosecutors contend that Hernandez summoned Ortiz and Wallace from his hometown of Bristol, Conn., to North Attleboro and at the same time made arrangements to meet with Lloyd.

According to court documents, those messages began at 9:02 p.m. on June 16, 2013, when a text was sent from Hernandez’s phone to Wallace: “please make it back cuZ I’m Def trying to step for alittle.”

Three minutes later, a message was sent from Hernandez’s phone to Lloyd: “I’m coming to grab that tonight u gon b around I need dat and we could step for a little again.”

Over the next several hours, numerous messages were exchanged between Hernandez’s phone and Lloyd, Ortiz and Wallace, according to court documents.

Prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez drove Ortiz and Wallace to the Dorchester section of Boston, where they picked up Lloyd. From there, the group allegedly returned to North Attleboro, where Lloyd was shot to death in a secluded field surrounded by piles of sand, gravel, asphalt and woods. The scene of the killing is about a half mile from Hernandez’s home.

Hernandez, Ortiz and Wallace have all been indicted on murder charges. Hernandez also faces weapons charges in the case.

Hernandez, who was cut by the Patriots within hours of his arrest on June 26, 2013, is scheduled to go to trial in January in Lloyd’s death.

He 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 starting next May 28, although it is likely to be pushed back.

The hearing in Lloyd’s death, conducted by Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh, wasn’t Tuesday's only news. Later in the day, Hernandez’s attorneys filed a motion seeking to move the trial in Lloyd’s murder, saying it’s necessary for him to get a fair trial in the face of “continued stream of extreme and sensational media that has flowed into Bristol County.”

The motion was not a surprise — defense attorneys have said repeatedly they were considering filing one. A hearing on that question is scheduled Oct. 30.

In the meantime, Hernandez’s attorneys are pressing ahead with their effort to get the cell phone and other evidence tossed out. Another hearing is scheduled Wednesday.

Hernandez’s lawyers had already won a partial victory when they challenged search warrants for an apartment rented by Hernandez in Franklin, Mass., and a Hummer parked outside that was registered to his name — and prosecutors opted not to fight back. That means prosecutors won’t be able to tell the jury that the bullets found in the apartment and the Hummer are identical to those used in Lloyd’s killing, or that a magazine for a Glock pistol was found in the vehicle. Prosecutors believe Lloyd was killed with a Glock, though they haven’t recovered the weapon.

Although Tuesday's testimony was painstaking, one fascinating detail emerged: When police officers sought to question Hernandez a few hours after Lloyd’s body was found, his lawyers objected on several grounds — that it was late at night, that he was tired, and that he wasn’t dressed appropriately, Bomberg testified.

The reason: Hernandez was wearing a Patriots sweatshirt and feared it would reflect badly on the team.