Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez was acquitted of two counts of first-degree murder on Friday, following six days of jury deliberations that lasted more than 40 hours, the Associated Press reports.
When the not-guilty verdict was read in court Friday afternoon, Hernandez appeared to get choked up, with the families of de Abreu and Furtado emotionally reacting behind him. Mr Bradley said Mr Abreu was the one who spilled the drink and it angered Mr Hernandez.
Hernandez was convicted on a single charge of illegal possession of a firearm. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Hernandez, the one-time rising star in the National Football League, who signed an extension worth $40 million with the Patriots in 2012, is now serving a life sentence in prison without parole for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd.
The prosecution alleged that Hernandez shot Furtado and de Abreu to death in a auto outside a Boston nightclub after one of them accidentally spilled a drink on him.
Hernandez's lawyers said it was Bradley - an admitted drug dealer - who shot the men over a drug deal.
This latest trial went on for a month with the jury deliberating for six days coming back with a not guilty finding on all charges except one.
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She will now be processed and placed in a cell after changing into prison garb with her prisoner number emblazoned on the chest. An official at the detention center said she was assigned a single cell, but declined to provide further details.
"They don't want you to base your decision on evidence, they want you to base it on prejudice". That's when Hernandez allegedly yelled a racial slur at them and fired five shots into the vehicle carrying the men, killing two people and injuring the other passengers.
After the case was heard, Hernandez was found not guilty of the murders of Abreu and Furtado along with a not guilty verdict of witness intimidation.
Defense attorney Ronald Sullivan Jr. said the jury was able to see through the "smoke and mirrors" that made up the state's case. In Bradley's testimony, he described the night he was driving Hernandez' Toyota 4Runner. Depicting a gun barrel loaded with five bullets and a spent shell casing, prosecutors said it represented the five bullets the shooter fired at the victims.
Hernandez, 27, played with the Patriots from 2010-12.
It was a spectacular fall from grace for the man who had once had a $40m five-year contract with the New England Patriots.
Conley said he and the families took solace knowing that Hernandez would not be "walking out the door" because of his prior conviction.
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