Brother of Aaron Hernandez Charged After Allegedly Making Sickening Threat Against School
The troubled brother of the late NFL player Aaron Hernandez was charged Friday in federal court with new counts of threatening and stalking after authorities say he threatened to shoot up the University of Connecticut and kill three people in another state.
Dennis Hernandez was ordered to be held in custody after his appearance in court in Hartford. A message seeking comment was sent Friday night to his attorney.
The new charges came days after it emerged that Hernandez was arrested on July 18 on state charges after police said he threatened to kill officers and then urged them to shoot him at his home in Bristol. Officers had gone there after two people close to him raised concerns about his mental health, police said.
The arrest report said the 37-year-old had sent threatening messages, including ones about carrying out a shooting at UConn. He was a Huskies quarterback and wide receiver who went by DJ Hernandez in the mid-2000s.
Court filings in the new federal case include the same messages. Some say Hernandez is struggling financially and is planning on “taking down everything” and doesn’t care “who gets caught in the crossfire.”
“I’ve died for years now and now its others peoples turn,” read a July 7 message sent to a woman in Hernandez’s life. It followed a message the day before that warned, “UConn’s gonna see how accurate I am too with my targets.”
Hernandez told another person that he drove on July 7 to UConn’s campus in Storrs and to Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, where he coached quarterbacks during the 2010-11 season, according to court papers.
He had been due in state court that day on another case stemming from allegations that he threw a bag containing a brick and a note over a fence and onto ESPN’s property in Bristol.
UConn police confirmed that a vehicle linked to Hernandez was on campus that day. Brown has said that its investigation didn’t indicate Hernandez had been on campus in recent weeks.
Hernandez is due back in state court on Tuesday and in federal court on Aug. 11.
His younger brother, former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, killed himself in 2017 while serving a murder sentence.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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