Ex-NFL star Hernandez due in court on charges of prison assault

[June 16, 2014]  BOSTON (Reuters) - Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, who has been charged with murdering three men in two incidents in 2012 and 2013, is due back in court on Monday to face charges of assaulting a fellow inmate while in jail.

He was charged in May with the February assault of a fellow jail inmate in the Bristol County House of Corrections after the two got into a verbal alteration.

Hernandez had been a star tight end for the New England Patriots when he was arrested in June 2013 and charged with the execution-style murder of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd.

He is awaiting trial on those charges at Fall River District Court, where his attorneys on Monday are also expected to argue on a range of motions, including a request to throw out some of the evidence gathered in a search of his North Attleborough, Massachusetts home.

In addition to the charges of killing Lloyd by shooting him in an industrial park near Hernandez's home, the former player was charged last month with gunning down two men he encountered at a Boston nightclub in an apparently unrelated incident in 2012.

Prosecutors charged that Hernandez, who had a contract worth about $40 million at the time of his arrest, grew so enraged when a drink was spilled on him that he tracked down and shot Cape Verdean nationals Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado.

Hernandez has denied all three murders. The Patriots cut ties with Hernandez hours after his arrest on June 26, 2013.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.