HARTFORD, Conn. -- A Superior Court judge ordered two Connecticut men Tuesday with ties to former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez to appear before a Massachusetts grand jury.
Judge Joan Alexander issued a warrant to allow police to arrest Alexander Bradley of East Hartford and compel him to appear before a grand jury in Suffolk County, Mass., after Bradley failed to appear Tuesday at a hearing to show why he should not be required to testify.
Bradley has alleged in a civil lawsuit that Hernandez shot him in the face in February after they argued at a Miami strip club.
The judge also ordered 21-year-old John Alcorn of Bristol to appear Thursday before the same grand jury. Alcorn is related to Thaddeus Singleton III, the deceased husband of Hernandez's cousin, Tanya Singleton.
Tanya Singleton was indicted on a criminal contempt charge after prosecutors say she refused to testify before the grand jury hearing evidence in the case that's led to a murder indictment against Hernandez. She refused to testify even after prosecutors offered her immunity. Her attorney has agreed that she be held without bail.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty in the shooting death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, whose body was found June 17 not far from Hernandez's mansion in North Attleborough, Mass. His defense team has called the case circumstantial and has said Hernandez looks forward to clearing his name.
He also has been linked to the investigation of a 2012 double homicide near a Boston nightclub. While probing Lloyd's death, police found an SUV, sought in the double homicide, at the home where Tanya Singleton lived with her uncle in Bristol, the former football player's hometown. The vehicle had been rented in Hernandez's name.
Massachusetts authorities have not commented on the grand jury investigation into that case.
Thaddeus Singleton III was killed in June when the car he was driving slammed into a country club building in Farmington. Police have ruled the death an accident.