The more we learn about Aaron Hernandez as he awaits trial for the murder of Odin Lloyd, the more we come to understand how troubled his past was. When Hernandez was 16, his father died unexpectedly following an infection that stemmed from a routine hernia surgery. Most people have pinpointed that tragic event as the moment where it all went wrong, but the roots run deeper than that.
When Hernandez was in sixth grade, his mother Terri Hernandez reportedly began taking bets for an illegal sports gambling organization. In a story about Hernandez’s past that was published in the Boston Globe on Thursday, Bob Hohler outlined some of the details regarding the gambling ring.
In 2001, Terri was arrested and charged with professional gambling for her involvement with the illegal operation. Police wiretaps allegedly intercepted her relaying several sports betting lines for games involving a number of teams, including — coincidentally — the New England Patriots. A man named Martin Hovanesian, Terri’s alleged accomplice, was convicted of felony racketeering and professional gambling.
“It was a big-time operation in a little town,’’ Hovanesian’s lawyer Williams Gerace told Hohler. “She was the phone operator, a minor player, not the brains.”
[Related: Aaron Hernandez’s mother was stabbed by his stepfather]
The outcome of Terri’s case is not available under Connecticut law. That would have been five years before Hernandez’s father passed away, so it gives you an idea of the type of activity he was surrounded by at a young age.
Before you start accusing us of making excuses for Hernandez, we assure you we are not. Plenty of people come from horrible pasts without allegedly being involved in a murder later in life. But countless questions have been asked about how someone who signed a $40 million NFL contract could simply throw it all away. While Hernandez’s troubled past doesn’t excuse that, it could help explain why.
