Aaron Hernandez caught Tom Brady’s last Super Bowl touchdown pass, but when his former quarterback faces off against Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos this weekend for a Super Bowl berth, Hernandez won’t be watching.
The accused murderer sits 21-hours a day in a cell in Massachusetts’s Bristol County House of Corrections. His celebrity status puts him in a segregation unit, whose conditions are anything but celebrated by prisoners. For three hours a day, prison authorities allow the tight end to go outside in a cage. Hernandez apparently takes advantage of that time to exercise. As Thomas M. Hodgson, sheriff of Bristol County, explained to the Boston Herald yesterday, “He’s not allowed to watch any TV.”
Last weekend, his fellow inmates watched an hour of the Patriots win against the Colts. But not #81. Hernandez has asked to watch television. But the answer from authorities has been a great, big no.
“We only allow two hours a day of entertainment television,” Hodgson told the Herald. “The rest of it has to be self-help tapes, self-help documentaries.” Hernandez, as a prisoner in the jail’s segregated unit, misses out on such perks as television.
The John Mackey Award-winner has gone from enjoying a $40 million contract, living in a mansion, and playing in the AFC Championship game the last two seasons to missing the big game–on the field and on TV–while awaiting a murder trial. Last year, Hernandez caught more passes than any other receiver in the conference championship. Now he can’t even watch.
Hernandez faces a murder charge in the execution-style slaying of his friend Odin Lloyd. He remains a suspect in several other shootings, including a July 2012 double-homicide in Boston.
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