Attorney: Aaron Hernandez 'Wished He Had Listened To Tom Brady'
BOSTON (CBS) - Jose Baez says Aaron Hernandez suffered from a brain disease and hid the symptoms from the people around him. "The silent killer of CTE. I believe Aaron was battling that specific disease for a long time," said the attorney who defended the disgraced former Patriots tight end in his second murder trial.
Hernandez, who had already been convicted of one murder, was found not guilty of the Boston double murder in April of 2017. Five days later, he committed suicide behind bars.
Even after Hernandez's death, Baez continues to advocate for him, and is now pushing a lawsuit against the NFL on behalf of Hernandez's five-year-old daughter. "I know he did have headaches, and had some memory loss at times, but we certainly didn't know how serious it was," said Baez.
Baez spoke with WBZ as his new biography was released Tuesday. It's called, "Unnecessary Roughness: Inside the Trial and Final Days of Aaron Hernandez."
In it, he published the suicide notes Hernandez wrote to his daughter, his fiancée, and to Baez. He also wrote about Hernandez's relationship with the Patriots. "Tom Brady was concerned about the characters he was hanging out with. He described to me the times he would go to Tom Brady's house and hang out with him, how they would practice all the time and…I know he wished he had listened to Tom Brady," Baez told WBZ.
He said Hernandez asked him to write the book about him as they awaited the jury's verdict in the Boston trial, and even signed a waiver. "I don't stand to profit anything. I'm taking my proceeds from this book and I'm setting up a college fund for his daughter…I wanted to write this story because this story hasn't been told, and this man is not the individual that a lot of people wanted to paint him out to be. I felt it was unfinished business for me."