Shayanna Jenkins ready to move on after perjury charge dismissed
Shayanna Jenkins said she is looking forward to the rest of her life after her perjury case was dismissed Friday in Superior Court.
“I’m feeling great. I’m happy to start my future with my daughter and move forward,” Jenkins told reporters outside the Fall River Justice Center.
When asked if she was still together with her fiance, Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star tight end currently serving a life sentence for murder, Jenkins said “eh” and declined to comment further.
Prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on Thursday. They cited Jenkins’ testimony over two days in late March during Hernandez’s murder trial after Jenkins had been granted immunity to testify as a prosecution witness. Prosecutors said her testimony at trial concerned matters that were the subject of her indictment.
“As a result of her more truthful testimony at trial, we could not in good faith continue the prosecution of this case,” said Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors had alleged Jenkins lied 29 times when she testified before the grand jury two years ago. They said she was untruthful about testimony that included where she discarded a box that Hernandez told her to “get rid of” from their basement. Prosecutors had also alleged that Jenkins lied about not recalling several conversations with Hernandez, 25, about Odin Lloyd’s murder on June 17, 2013.
Jenkins’ attorney, Janice Bassil, said Friday that prosecutors should never have charged Jenkins with perjury.
“Quite frankly, the charge never should have been brought. She made an honest mistake in the grand jury,” said Bassil, who accused the Bristol County district attorney’s office of “deliberately” prosecuting Jenkins as leverage to ensure she would testify for the prosecution.
“From the very beginning, (prosecutors) made it clear, they made threats to her family, that she would be charged, even after they had given her immunity. So this is a long day coming, and we’re delighted that she’s been cleared of all charges,” Bassil said.
After receiving a grant of immunity on Feb. 10, Jenkins testified on March 27 and March 30 during Hernandez’s 10-week trial in Fall River. She disclosed details that she did not tell the grand jury in June 2013. She testified about seeing a large black handgun inside a kitchen “junk drawer” sometime in 2013. Jenkins also admitted that she drove to Rhode Island to meet Ernest Wallace, an alleged accomplice, after she left the North Attleborough Police Station on the night of June 17, 2013. Two years ago, Jenkins told the grand jury that she went home after leaving the police station, but on March 27 she testified that Hernandez told her to meet Wallace and give him money.
Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, another alleged accomplice, are both awaiting trial on murder and accessory charges. Prosecutors say they accompanied Hernandez in picking up Lloyd outside his Dorchester home and driving him to the North Attleborough Industrial Park, where Lloyd was shot at least five times with a .45-caliber handgun just before 3:30 a.m. on June 17, 2013.
On April 15, jurors convicted Hernandez of first-degree murder and gun and ammunition charges. The first-degree murder conviction carries a life sentence without the possibility of parole. In court documents filed Tuesday in support of the appeal process, Hernandez’s lawyers said “no rational jury” could have convicted Hernandez of first-degree murder. The defense team accused jurors of engaging in “improper speculation, conjecture and guesswork.”
Hernandez is also awaiting trial for a 2012 double homicide in Boston, where he is charged with two counts of murder. A Suffolk County grand jury this month also indicted Hernandez for a witness intimidation charge stemming from an allegation that Hernandez shot his former friend, Alexander Bradley, in the face in Florida two years ago after Bradley is said to have made a remark about the Boston homicides.
Hernandez is also a defendant in two wrongful death lawsuits in Bristol and Suffolk counties. Bristol County Superior Court Judge Richard Moses this week issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting anyone from selling Hernandez’s 2005 Hummer, which was recently listed for sale at a car dealership in Wrentham. Attorneys representing Ursula Ward, the plaintiff who is Lloyd’s mother, said there is a “substantial likelihood” she will be awarded more than $5 million in damages.
Thus far, only Hernandez’s 7,100-square-foot North Attleborough home — which sold for $1.3 million in November 2012 — has been attached in the Bristol County lawsuit. Ward’s attorneys accuse Hernandez of “systematically” trying to hide, dissolve and liquidate his assets to avoid having them attached in lawsuits. Moses set a May 21 hearing date to hear arguments on Ward’s request for a preliminary injunction on the Hummer’s sale.