Aaron Hernandez Seeks To Suppress Phone Evidence
FALL RIVER (AP) — Lawyers for former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez have asked a judge to suppress evidence from his cellphone, saying state police didn't have a warrant to take it after his arrest last year.
The motion filed Monday in Bristol Superior Court says prosecutors misled his attorneys and improperly relied on warrants they had to search Hernandez's home and the phone. The filing says that when prosecutors learned Hernandez's attorneys had the phone, they should have sought a separate, more stringent, search warrant for the law firm.
The court filing says prosecutors "deliberately induced Mr. Hernandez's lawyers to turn over his cell phone based upon a false claim of legal authority."
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to murder in the fatal shooting of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd in June 2013. Lloyd, of Boston, was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee.
Judge Susan Garsh has ruled previously that state police had probable cause to take the phone because they said Lloyd had texted and called Hernandez the night he was killed.
The judge last month granted Hernandez's request to suppress evidence from two other cellphones and three iPads taken from his home because they weren't listed in a search warrant. In July, she rejected a defense request to suppress evidence from his home surveillance cameras.
Hernandez, who grew up in Bristol, Connecticut, is charged separately in the killings of two men in Boston in 2012 after a brief encounter at a nightclub. He has pleaded not guilty.
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