I’m sure that the lawyer of Patriots owner Bob Kraft was enthused that his client ignored his advice–and told everyone about it:
“My heart goes out to the Lloyd family,” he said. “I feel bad that someone connected to our organization is connected to this.”
Kraft — who explained that he had to be limited in his remarks because of an ongoing criminal investigation as well as other potential civil proceedings, and was speaking against the advice of his general counsel — began by reading a statement to reporters.
“Following Aaron’s arrest, I read a number of different accounts of how things transpired in our organization. Let me be clear: We decided the week prior to Aaron’s arrest that if Aaron was arrested in connection with the Lloyd murder case that we would cut him immediately after,” he said.
“The rationale behind that decision was that if any member of the New England Patriots organization is close enough to a murder investigation to actually get arrested — whether it be for obstruction of justice or the crime itself, it is too close to an unthinkable act for that person to be part of this organization going forward.”
Kraft, who repeated that the club did not know Hernandez would be facing a murder charge when it released him, said the Patriots had no knowledge of Hernandez’s actions outside of Gillette Stadium.