Feeding into the whole notion that NFL Network Ocho AKA ESPN only cares about the NFL above all else, I was peeved when a good weekend of baseball, and hell even basketball was derailed by the frantic news of known asshole and murderer, Aaron Hernandez’s death.
Now I’m not going to pretend like I’ve bothered to go in-depth into all the details, because when the day is over, I couldn’t possibly give two shits about Aaron Hernandez, and at a first blush situation, I think it’s better that he’s dead, because he’s one less deadbeat that the country and its tax payers have to worry about sustaining inside of a prison, where he serves absolutely no purpose or benefit to the rest of the world.
My first thoughts were that since the death happened pretty quickly after he was somehow acquitted of the double-homicide charge that he was partially in prison for in the first place, I figured some prison guards or rogue law enforcement basically beat the guy to death, made it look like a suicide and called it a day, to prevent the guy from actually getting out of incarceration.
But this is a case where not knowing all the facts makes me look foolish, because although he was acquitted of the double-homicide, he was still going to be serving the rest of his life sentence for the supposed single-homicide that he was also accused of.
So this is where the interesting part of the story unfolds, because ultimately if such is actually the case then Aaron Hernandez kind of went out as not quite as big of a piece of shit who probably still is a murderer, but is a murderer who really, really loves his family and wants them to be well off, even if it means killing himself.
But the way things are unfolding, the story goes as such: While charged, Hernandez was in violation of his last contract with the New England Patriots, and was no longer getting paid the guaranteed money that he would have been owed had he not murdered a bunch of people. But when he was acquitted of double, and was in an appeal status on the single, it created a scenario where his record was still clean, and could be argued that he was still due money. And when he allegedly killed himself, due to a discreet and obscure legal loophole, any appealed charge where the accused dies in middle of the appeal, is basically stricken from the books.
So upon Aaron Hernandez’s death, he died a man with no charges against him, and by standard next-of-kin laws, his beneficiaries should be due nearly $3.5 million dollars from the New England Patriots that he should have received as a free man.
Here’s the thing though, the Patriots will undoubtedly argue this, and justifiably so, because why should any former employer pay a former employee who happened to kill people’s family money when the scumbag died? But the problem for the Patriots is that this is now a story that has caught some momentum, and since an innocent child is involved, as being beneficiary to Hernandez’s assets, they’re put in a no-win situation where doing what’s right is a PR disaster for the organization, or they give into the terrorists and give up money that they don’t have any obligation to give up.
I don’t really know how to feel about this situation as a whole. I don’t have any empathy for a murderer killing himself in prison. But the perceived motives for killing himself definitely have a noble cause, because as a man, why wouldn’t he want to make sure his children are taken care of? It’s cerebral and almost respectable, and almost salvages a tiny bit of humanity from a person who is accused to have none. At first blush, I want to take the side of the Patriots, because I don’t think they should have to fork over a single dime to anyone, because they’re not the ones who killed anyone (directly), but the problem is that they’ve been thrust into the spotlight as a wealthy organization who may or may not deny money to an innocent child.
I like that someone is sticking it to the NFL and one of its Oprah-rich organizations, but I don’t like that that someone is a murderer. I don’t know whose side to take in this one.
Ultimately, I bet that the Patriots will of course appeal and fight the good fight to not have to pay Aaron Hernandez’s remaining salary to anyone, but in an attempt to mitigate the PR backlash, they’ll set up a college fund or some sort of charity for his surviving family, and ultimately still give up money that they really shouldn’t be responsible for paying.
But damn if Hernandez’s Hail Mary to take care of his family isn’t something. Screwing the Patriots all the way to the grave.
