New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft took the stand on Tuesday to testify in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial. Perhaps the most important information the prosecution uncovered during his testimony was the fact that Hernandez allegedly lied to Kraft and others about where he was the night Odin Lloyd was killed.
Kraft testified that he had a brief conversation with Hernandez at the Patriots facility the day after the murder. He said his former tight end assured him he was innocent and that he had an alibi.
“He said he was not involved, that he was innocent,” Kraft said, per Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports. “And he hoped that the time of the murder came out because I believe he said he was in a club.”
When Kraft left the stand, Patriots director of security Mark Briggs was called to testify. Briggs said he also had a conversation with Hernandez and that Hernandez told him the same story about being at a club in Providence that night, even swearing “on his baby’s life that he was telling the truth.”
While you may think the testimonies of Kraft and Briggs could help Hernandez, that likely won’t be the case. Lloyd was murdered at around 3:32 a.m. on June 17, 2013. For starters, no nightclubs in Rhode Island or Massachusetts are open at that time. The prosecution has also established that Hernandez was not at a nightclub on June 17, as his fiancee testified that he had dinner with her and some friends that day.
Aside from the testimony Hernandez’s girlfriend Shayanna Jenkins gave on Monday, Kraft’s testimony may have been the most compelling. He told the court that he knew little about Hernandez’s personal life and that the two had a special way of greeting each other that always involved a hug and a kiss. If everything the 73-year-old owner said under oath is true, he must have been blindsided by Hernandez’s arrest.
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