Aaron Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, is suing the NFL and the New England Patriots, Hernandez’s former team, alleging that Hernandez killed himself as the result of the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy he suffered during his football career.
TMZ reports that Jenkins-Hernandez filed the lawsuit in Massachusetts on behalf of the daughter she shares with Hernandez. CTE is degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma, and Jenkins-Hernandez alleges that the Patriots and the NFL kept her fiancé in the dark about CTE’s possible effects.
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“Aaron had stage 3 CTE usually seen in players with a median age of death of 67 years,” she said in the suit.
She alleged that the NFL and the Patriots “were fully aware of the damage that could be inflicted from repetitive impact injuries and failed to disclose, treat or protect him from the dangers of such damage.”
She added that she and her daughter are seeking “redress for the loss of parental consortium she has experienced based on the negligent conduct of Defendants that deprived her of the companionship and society of her father, Aaron Hernandez.”
Hernandez, who was in prison serving a life sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd, killed himself in his prison cell after he was found not guilty in a double homicide. Jenkins-Hernandez believes her fiancé’s death was a result of the symptoms of CTE.
On Thursday, Hernandez, who was 27 when he died, was revealed to have one of the most severe forms of CTE, the New York Times reports.
His brain was examined by Dr. Ann McKee, a professor of pathology and neurology at Boston University and director of the team researching CTE, who said in a statement the athlete had stage 3 out of 4.
Jose Baez, a lawyer for Hernandez, announced the news in a press conference Thursday and said that researchers determined it was “the most severe case they had ever seen in someone of Aaron’s age.”
Photo Credit: Getty / Boston Globe / Getty / Jared Wickerham
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