Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Aaron Hernandez (Former National League football player): Massachusetts: (Ballistics): "Bradley spent two days testifying under a grant of immunity against Hernandez, whom he met in 2009 in their native Connecticut. Bradley testified Monday Hernandez reached across him from the front passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner and fired five shots into a BMW, killing de Abreu and Furtado after a brief encounter at a Boston nightclub.........Suffolk First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan finished his direct examination of Bradley Tuesday morning by asking him if he killed de Abreu and Furtado. “Did you shoot those people?” Haggan asked. “No,” Bradley said."


STORY: "‘I just wasn’t going to go down for something he did,’ Hernandez witness says," by reporters Travis Andersen and John R. Ellement, published by The Boston Globe on March 21, 2017.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Alexander Bradley pointed to a scar on his face that he says was caused by a gunshot wound inflicted by Aaron Hernandez."

GIST" "Alexander Bradley finished his direct testimony against one-time “best friend” Aaron Hernandez Tuesday, saying he would have kept silent about a double murder in Boston if only the former New England Patriot had not shot him once between the eyes. “When it came down to it, at the end, I just wasn’t going to go down for something he did,’’ Bradley testified in Suffolk Superior Court. “I probably would have prior [to the shooting,] but I had no more loyalty to him. After what he did to me there was no more loyalty. Prior that, I wouldn’t have cooperated at all.’’ Bradley is the star prosecution witness against Hernandez in his ongoing double murder trial for the July 16, 2012 shootings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston’s South End. Hernandez is also charged with witness intimidation for shooting Bradley in Florida in 2013. Hernandez, 27, has pleaded not guilty. Bradley spent two days testifying under a grant of immunity against Hernandez, whom he met in 2009 in their native Connecticut. Bradley testified Monday Hernandez reached across him from the front passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner and fired five shots into a BMW, killing de Abreu and Furtado after a brief encounter at a Boston nightclub.........Suffolk First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan finished his direct examination of Bradley Tuesday morning by asking him if he killed de Abreu and Furtado. “Did you shoot those people?” Haggan asked. “No,” Bradley said.

Defense attorney Jose Baez began cross examining Bradley by laying out his immunity agreement and establishing that he has sold drugs since around the year 2000...Earlier Tuesday, the defense suffered a setback when Locke ruled jurors will not hear how Bradley opened fire on a Hartford nightclub, information the defense wanted to use as part of their effort to depict Bradley as the shooter in the 2012 double murder in Boston. Locke ruled on Tuesday that a surveillance video showing Bradley shooting into the Vevo nightclub - after Bradley had been shot in the “crotch” - won’t be seen by the jury. Locke also ruled that jurors will not learn that police in Connecticut matched ballistic evidence found at a March 2013 shooting in Bridgeport to the .40 caliber gun Bradley used in Hartford in 2014. Locke ruled the forensic evidence alone was not enough to link Bradley to both shootings. Speaking from the bench as he explained his thinking, Locke said that “viewed in a vaccum,” the Vevo shooting had strong similarities to the shootings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, whom authorities allege Hernandez murdered after a chance encounter in a Boston nightclub. The Vevo information could lead one “to believe that Bradley was the shooter in our case...Viewed solely in a vacuum,one might suggest that it does. It involves a night time shooting with some connection to a nightclub and it showed somewhat of a brazen use of a firearm to shoot at others,’’ Locke said. But the judge said there was one key difference in that Bradley was retaliating against being shot by another patron from the nightclub while Hernandez is accused of murdering two men because one of them spilled his drink onto the former National Football League player. Also, he said, if he allowed jurors to learn that Bradley is convicted of a shooting, he must also tell them that Hernandez is serving a life sentence for shooting Odin L. Lloyd to death in 2013 in North Attleborough..........After Locke’s ruling, Bradley admitted he was convicted on a drug possession charge in Connecticut in 2006. He also pleaded guilty on Jan. 9, 2017 in Hartford Superior Court to criminal possession of a firearm, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, but without any details of the incident being disclosed to the jury."

The entire story can be found at:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/21/aaron-hernandez-trial-star-witness-undergo-cross-examination/UQaac0qYntRM5EPjhh5D9K/story.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;