Aaron Hernandez Murder Case Update: Setback For Former NFL Player As Judge Keeps His Cell Phone In Shocking Trial [VIDEO]
New update in the Aaron Hernandez murder case: According to a new report, the former New England Patriots player suffered a setback on Friday.
Judge in Aaron Hernandez Murder Case refuses To Remove Herself Despite Prosecutor's Request
According to the Boston Globe, a Bristol Superior Court judge denied Hernandez's motion to toss key evidence from the athlete's cell phone. Judge E. Susan Garsh wrote "that Hernandez's lawyers voluntarily turned over the phone to State Police on the evening of June 18, 2013, one day after the killing of Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester" in her 22-page ruling.
Hernandez's lawyers were arguing that the police obtained the cell phone through "false claim of legal authority" from the Boston office of Ropes & Gray, which the judge then rejected.
A warrant had actually authorized the police to take the cell phone, but reportedly when the police searched Hernandez's house, the phone was with the lawyers at their office.
"At no point during this conversation did [Patrick] Bomberg, explicitly or implicitly, claim authority under the warrant to send a state trooper to the offices of Ropes & Gray to seize the phone or indicate that the State Police were on the way to Ropes & Gray to seize the phone under the authority of the warrant," Judge Garsh wrote.
"The turning over of the phone was a voluntary act," Garsh wrote. "It was not the result of force, threat, trickery, duress, or coercion."
The phone is reportedly very important because Hernandez had texted the victim Odin Lloyd. "I'm coming to grab that tonight," Hernandez texted, according to the court records. "u gon b around I need dat and we could step for a little again."
