Aaron Hernandez helped lead the New England Patriots to Super Bowl XLVI. (Pat Greenhouse /The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
A peek into the late Aaron Hernandez’s time in prison has been revealed, thanks to prison records from the institutions he spent four years in after his murder conviction.
Records from Bristol County Jail in Massachusetts show Hernandez, who died of suicide in April, was charged with disciplinary offenses 21 times from 12 different incidents and when he went to Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Mass., for two years, he had 78 more offenses from a dozen incidents, according to reports obtained by Yahoo Sports.
“Hernandez struck [name redacted] with a closed fist to the face and both men engage[d] in a physical altercation,” a report from Souza-Baranowski said of one of at least four brawls. “The combatants ignored several direct orders to cease their actions and [mace] was utilized to separate the inmates.”
In 2013, while Hernandez was on the disciplinary detention commonly put upon him, he received a prohibited commissary shipment that included 24 honey buns. Rather than risk corrections officers confiscating all of his food, the former New England Patriots tight end ate 20 of the pastries back to back throughout the night.
“I’m a smart dude,” Hernandez said to an officer, according to an incident report from Bristol County Jail. “I knew you’d be coming for this stuff … that’s why I ate as much food as I could.”
The mundane tasks of cell, strip and body cavity searches were the source of Hernandez’s complaints, which saw him shouting at guards, accusing them of “overdoing your job,” according to a report.
“His aggressive tone … has become an excessive habit when he does not receive what he wants, when he wants it,” a Bristol County guard wrote in a report. “He is constantly kicking his cell door and screaming at the top of his lungs utilizing profanity at times when he wants something, regardless of how minuscule it is. It is not uncommon for Hernandez to kick his cell door constantly until an officer approaches his cell merely to ask the officer for the current time.”
Still, inmates told officers Hernandez largely “kept to himself” and prisoners attempted to extort him, as was revealed in a note seized by guards. One told Hernandez he would “look out” for him if Hernandez used his contacts to bail him out.
