National Football League

Witness in Hernandez case in custody

Published Oct. 4, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

A Connecticut man who says he was shot by former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez has been ordered to appear next week before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating a deadly double shooting linked to the player.

Alexander Bradley, 31, of East Hartford appeared in Hartford Superior Court following his arrest Friday morning at a girlfriend's home in Hartford.

Superior Court Judge Joan Alexander directed Bradley to appear on Oct. 8 before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating a 2012 double shooting in Boston that has been linked to Hernandez. Bradley has been a wanted man since a fugitive warrant was issued for him last month when he failed to appear in Hartford for a hearing related to that case.

Bradley has already testified before another Massachusetts grand jury investigating the death of a semipro football player who Hernandez is charged with killing.

Bradley was charged Friday with interfering with police and violating a protective order issued after he allegedly broke into his girlfriend's home in a domestic incident earlier this year. Alexander set a bond in that case, and in the previous break-in, at $250,000 in cash.

''You've got to stack up $250,000 in cash or cashier's checks on the clerk's desk,'' his attorney, Robert Pickering said after the hearing. ''Once you're in the system, if they really want you, they can apply all different kinds of laws to you to keep you.''

Bradley grabbed the attention of Massachusetts authorities after filing a lawsuit against Hernandez, asserting he was shot in the face by the former player in February as they were driving in Florida after arguing in a Miami strip club.

At the time, he told police he did not know who had shot him. Bradley lost vision in an eye as a result of the shooting.

Bradley was called to testify in July before the grand jury investigating the June death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, whose body was found not far from Hernandez's mansion in North Attleborough, Mass. At the time, authorities said they were interested in similarities between Lloyd's death and the shooting of Bradley.

Bradley later was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury investigating the 2012 shooting in which Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado were killed in Boston's South End.

But he failed to appear in September at a hearing before Judge Alexander to show why he should not be required to testify before that panel, and a fugitive warrant was issued for him.

Pickering declined to say what Bradley might know about the Boston shooting, but said he is not a target of the investigation. He said he simply does not want to testify.

''Do you want to be put in a national spotlight when you just want to mind your own business?'' he said.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to murder in the shooting death of Lloyd. No charges have been filed in the Boston shooting.

While investigating Lloyd's death, police found a sport utility vehicle rented in Hernandez's name that had been linked to that double homicide at the home of Hernandez's uncle in Bristol, Conn. They also recovered 100 cartridges of .38-caliber ammunition.

Another Connecticut resident, John Alcorn of Bristol, was also ordered to testify last month before the grand jury.

Alcorn, 21, is related to Thaddeus Singleton III, the deceased husband of Tanya Singleton, a cousin of Aaron Hernandez who also lived in the Bristol home where the SUV was discovered.

Police said Alcorn, whose nickname is ''Chicago,'' was the man mentioned in a Massachusetts police report in June as the possible owner of a .38-caliber gun seized from a car after an accident in Springfield, Mass.

Massachusetts authorities have not commented on the grand jury investigation.