BOSTON (WHDH) - The defense team for Aaron Hernandez and prosecutors stepped out of the courtroom on Wednesday to visit the Cure Lounge in Boston.
Hernandez is charged with killing two men, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, in a 2012 drive-by shooting, because one of the men bumped into the former football star in the Tremont Street nightclub, spilling his drink.
Though the trial starts in February, pre-trial hearings are beginning to piece together the case against Hernandez. Defense attorneys for Hernandez raised questions Wednesday about why certain surveillance cameras in the nightclub were not working the night of the alleged killings.
At the last hearing, prosecutors highlighted two tattoos as evidence, one of a revolver and the other of the words “God forgives.” Hernandez’s attorneys told the judge that the tattoos and text messages sent to his sports agent should not be heard at the pre-trial.
Hernandez had tattoos done soon after the victims were killed that link him to the slayings, prosecutor Patrick Haggan said in court.
One is of a revolver with five bullets in the chamber and one missing, which prosecutors allege represents the five shots fired into the car occupied by the victims. They also pointed to a tattoo that reads “God Forgives,” but written backward so it becomes clear only when read in a mirror.
Ronald Sullivan, one of Hernandez’s attorneys, called the prosecution’s theory “speculation,” and “inference,” and said allowing jurors to hear about the tattoos would be a violation of Hernandez’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
The defense also asked the judge to bar as evidence text messages between Hernandez and a former friend that were later forwarded to sports agent Brian Murphy.
The prosecution said the texts, involving prosecution witness Alexander Bradley, also tie Hernandez to the crime.
The defense said the texts are protected by attorney-client privilege.
The prosecution said Murphy was not acting as Hernandez’s lawyer at the time.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke did not immediately rule.
Hernandez is already serving a life sentence for the 2013 shooting death of Odin Lloyd, the boyfriend of his fiancee’s sister.
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