Aaron Hernandez is hiring some strange guns to defend him against Alexander Bradley, a Connecticut man and his personal friend, whom he also happened to shoot in the eye last February during a fight outside a strip club. Not that Bradley even wanted to press charges. After being shot, Bradley said he didn’t know who shot him, then blamed two unknown men, black and Hispanic, and asked for the investigating to be dropped, as police reported. More likely, it seems, he was trying to protect his friend Aaron Hernandez, who meanwhile is being investigated in the death of Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semipro football player and friend of Hernandez.
The lawyer he hired to defend him against Bradley, however, is Stephen Gillman of Florida’s oldest firm, Shutts and Brown, whose website gives a biography that he specializes in “antitrust and fraud cases for the federal government,” focusing on “antitrust, banking, and security litigation,” as USA News reported. So a strange attorney to choose, but a heavy hitter, nonetheless.
As for Bradley, who is represented by New York based attorney David Jaroslawicz, his lawyer said “We don’t know whether [the gun shot] was accidental or deliberate,” as he said to USA TODAY Sports. “If we get to take Mr. Hernandez’s testimony, perhaps he will tell us he accidently pulled the trigger or maybe he did it on purpose.”
Whether this is strategic or not could be debated; Bradley seemed eager not to incriminate his friend, and they are, meanwhile, still chumming, as Bradley also had to go to court for driving 100 mph DUI, at which point his passenger, Hernandez, attempted to avoid a ticket with a little name-dropping.
“Trooper, I’m Aaron Hernandez. It’s OK.”
Whether such nonchalant, above the law attitude will prove to be his downfall in the murder investigation and in the alleged shooting of his friend in the eye remains to be seen.