Aaron Hernandez's defense bristles over recorded jailhouse phone calls

FALL RIVER, Mass. – Aaron Hernandez understood that anything and everything he said into the phone at the Bristol County (Mass.) House of Corrections would be recorded, reprinted and potentially used against him.

"Hey, [watch] what you say," he told his aunt, Tanya Singleton. "The phone is recorded."

"I know, I know, I know," she said back.

So the select transcripts of 23 conversations Hernandez had with Singleton, live-in girlfriend Shayanna Jenkins and others, including Mike Pouncey, a former Florida Gator teammate and current Miami Dolphin, were controlled, careful and mostly innocuous.

Some of them, though, are rather telling. And if nothing else, the prosecution may have wanted them admitted into evidence just to get them made public and potentially drive a wedge into the Hernandez camp, of which any defection could seal the murder case against the former New England Patriots star.

Hernandez is on trial here at Bristol County Superior Court for the June 17, 2013, murder of Odin Lloyd, a friend found shot to death in an undeveloped industrial area near Hernandez's North Attleboro, Mass., home. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty.

His defense filed a motion Wednesday to suppress the jailhouse calls, claiming they are unduly prejudicial, contain hearsay and violated Hernandez's Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh has yet to make a ruling.

If any of the conversations can be considered remotely damning, it's the ones which came after Singleton was jailed for not cooperating with authorities during the investigation. She was eventually sentenced to two years of home confinement.

In other phone conversations, Hernandez repeatedly tried to get family members to forward his love to Singleton and asked Jenkins to put $500 on her jail account to help with extra food at the canteen or other needs.

Jenkins wasn't thrilled with the plan.

"I don't know why you keep …" Jenkins said.

"She's got no money in jail," Hernandez responded.

"I under – Aaron, I understand that, but why do I have to keep being the one to do that?" Jenkins asked. She later implied that being involved in such a thing might be against the legal advice of her attorneys. Jenkins has been charged with lying to a grand jury, although she has been offered a plea deal if she testifies in Hernandez's murder trial.

"I'm trying to follow what my lawyers are telling me to follow, and then you keep trying to have me do other things," Jenkins said.

Having Jenkins hesitant to help Hernandez's own aunt, who has been extremely loyal, can't help things.

Then there is Hernandez setting up a trust fund for two boys, presumably young relatives, and discussing it with what the jail deemed an unknown female. The two kids can get the fund at age 18 where it might mature to up to $250,000, according to Hernandez.

(There's a separate fund for his now 2-year-old daughter that Hernandez claims could one day be worth $6 million.)

"Don't tell nobody," Hernandez asked. "I don't want nobody to know about it. And I ain't even telling my girl, nobody."

Well, his girl, Jenkins, knows now. The prosecution is desperate for Jenkins to flip on Hernandez. She has an immunity deal on the table protecting her from self-incrimination and compelling her to either testify at trial or stand in contempt of court and likely jailed.

Then there was this Hernandez 2013 dig at Singleton, who is now suffering from cancer.

"The only good thing about Tanya being locked up is she's gonna lose weight," he said.

"Shut up," Jenkins responded.

Mike Pouncey makes some appearances. First, is Hernandez expressing apparent appreciation that after he was charged with murder, Mike and his twin brother Maurkice wore hats that read: "Free Hernandez." Maurkice, who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, later apologized to anyone offended by the hat.

Then there is the bizarre, such as the Oct. 14, 2013, conversation (a Dolphins bye week) where Mike Pouncey and Hernandez discuss a mutually known associate they make sure not to name. This man was apparently jailed at the time with notorious South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, who'd spent decades on the run but had been recently apprehended in California and shipped back to Massachusetts.

"You know who he's locked up with?" Hernandez said.

"Um, who?" Mike Pouncey said.

"He's locked up with that – with that mafia dude," Hernandez said. "… The mafia dude up here who just got caught after like …"

"Oh, yeah, yeah," Pouncey said.

Later Pouncey noted how much he misses and likes Ernest Wallace, one of Hernandez's associates from his hometown of Bristol, Conn. Wallace is also charged in Odin Lloyd's murder and will stand trial separately, perhaps later this year.

"I miss Ernest, though too, bro," Pouncey said. "Real talk."

"Word, yeah," Hernandez said. "That's my [racial slur] man, yeah."

"He's a 100 brother," Pouncey said.

Hernandez also had a Christmas 2013 conversation with Jenkins that discussed the moving (or not moving) of clothes in the home they used to share. The prosecution could claim this was some kind of coded request to hide evidence – the sneakers Hernandez wore that night were never recovered by police, although the box they likely came in was.

It sounds more like Jenkins had no idea what Hernandez was saying.

"My clothes still at the house?" Hernandez asked.

"Where do you think they are?" Jenkins said.

"I don't know," Hernandez said.

"I mean, what, what do you think I'm doing," Jenkins said. "I really don't understand. Like, where do you think your clothes are? Your clothes are exactly, I mean, that is your house. Your clothes are exactly where they're supposed to be. … I thought about moving your shoes to give me some more room, but, I mean, I left them."

"Yeah," Hernandez said, before making a noise that was inaudible on the recording.

Jenkins may have been confused by everything, including the severity of the situation Hernandez found himself in.

"But I, I don't know what you're thinking I'm doing," she said. "I mean, your clothes are exactly where, I mean, you've only been gone for what, six months?"

"Yeah," Hernandez said.

"You act like you're going to be gone for, like, 20 years," Jenkins concluded.

The way this trial is going, coupled with a pending double-homicide rap up in Boston for a separate 2012 shooting, Hernandez would probably take just 20 years.