UPDATE (8:30 p.m. ET): Carlos Ortiz, an associate of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, pleaded guilty Monday to being an accessory after the fact in the murder of Odin Lloyd.
He received a prison sentence of 4 1/2 to 7 years in jail.
ORIGINAL STORY: Aaron Hernandez associate Carlos Ortiz is expected to admit he was with the convicted murderer and former New England Patriots tight end the night Odin Lloyd was shot and killed in 2013.
Ortiz is due at Bristol Superior Court in Fall River, Mass., on Monday on charges of first-degree murder and is expected to plead guilty to a lesser charge, The Boston Globe reported. Ortiz also was charged with accessory after the fact to murder, but he already pleaded not guilty.
Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder, which comes with an automatic life sentence, in 2015 for taking semi-professional football player Lloyd to an industrial park in North Attleboro, Mass., where he shot him. Ortiz allegedly was there with Hernandez and a third man, Ernest Wallace, who was acquitted of murder in May but convicted of being an accessory and sentenced to serve up to seven years in state prison.
It’s believed Hernandez killed Lloyd for knowing about his alleged involvement in another murder, a drive-by shooting in Boston’s South End in 2012. That case, a double murder, is pending in Suffolk Superior Court. Hernandez pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and weapons charges in that case.
Thumbnail photo via The Sun Chronicle/USA TODAY Sports Images
