Secret Video Shows Aaron Hernandez Breaking Cell Phone Into Pieces After Murder — & He Gave The Pieces To His Lawyer!
Feb. 13 2015, Published 2:21 p.m. ET
Jurors in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial will see video of the ex-NFL star breaking his cell phone into pieces outside a police station, the judge ruled Friday.
Cops secretly recorded the former New England Patriots tight end and his lawyer in the police station parking lot June 18, 2013 -- a day after he allegedly gunned down Odin Lloyd and left the man's body at a construction site near his North Attleboro, Massachusetts home.
Records of cell phone texts, calls and GPS locations are a key part of the prosecution's case against Hernandez, who allegedly was involved with two other men, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, in Lloyd's murder.
Jurors were loaded on a bus last week to view several cell phone transmission towers near the crime scene and Hernandez's home to support their theory of the defendant's movements at the time of the murder.
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The controversial video captured Hernandez as he "dismantled his phone," the district attorney said.
"He breaks it down into three pieces -- the phone, the battery and the cover are taken apart."
The lawyer then got another phone out of his car trunk and handed it to his client, he said. Phone records show Hernandez then used the new phone to call "co-venturer" Wallace.
Defense lawyers asked the judge to ban the video from the trial because it violated the attorney-client privacy privilege. It was not recorded by a passive security camera, but by an investigator zooming in on Hernandez and his lawyer, they argued.
It was "a deliberate effort to surveil him in his interaction with his lawyer," defense lawyer James Sultan said.
Judge Susan Garsh, however, ruled Friday there was no expectation of privacy for someone in a well-lighted police parking lot.
Friday's testimony also included crime scene investigators describing where bullets and their casings were found at the death scene. A car rental agent also testified about the car Hernandez rented that he allegedly used to drive Lloyd to the location where he was killed.