Families of the victims in Aaron Hernandez’s murder cases hope the New England Patriots can become “champions of justice” in the coming years.
Lawyers representing the families of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado said Tuesday following a Suffolk (Mass.) Superior Court hearing their clients would “welcome” the Patriots to compensate them for their loss, according to The Associated Press.
Hernandez, a former Patriots tight end, was acquitted April 14 of killing Abreu and Furtado by gunfire in 2012. Five days later he committed suicide in his prison cell, where he already was serving a life sentence for his conviction in the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd.
Abreu’s and Furtado’s families have filed wrongful death lawsuits against Hernandez’s estate.
Attorneys representing Lloyd’s mother had previously called on the Patriots to pay her family $6 million to his estate.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court vacated Hernandez’s conviction in May, legally clearing his name in death. Whether that decision obliges the Patriots to pay his estate $5.91 million in guaranteed money remaining on the five-year, $39.8 million contract he signed prior to his arrest remains to be seen.
The Patriots declined to respond to the AP’s request for a comment.
Thumbnail photo via Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe/USA Today Sports Images
