Aaron Hernandez is suing a company that records inmates' telephone conversations after a report that an unauthorized person accessed recordings of his calls while he was awaiting trial for murder.
The former Patriots tight end filed suit against Dallas-based Securus Technologies in Massachusetts state court last week, but the action was moved to federal court last Friday.
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In the filing, Hernandez's attorneys cite a 2015 report by The Intercept that a Securus database that included thousands of recordings of inmates' calls was compromised by hackers between 2011 and 2014, and a report last month by the Boston Herald said Hernandez was among those affected by the breach.
"During a routine security check, our Sheriff's Investigative Division discovered that Securus' telephone database had been accessed for calls relating to detainee Hernandez," Peter Van Delft, spokesman for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, said in a statement to the Herald last month. "The Department then initiated discussions with Securus officials about improving security."
The Suffolk Sheriff's Office did not inform prosecutors or Hernandez's defense attorneys of the unauthorized access. Hernandez was convicted in the murder of Odin Lloyd in April 2015 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
"To date, the extent of the security breach, the files and recordings that were accessed during the security breach, and the identity of the party(ies) responsible for the breach have not been provided to Plaintiff or his counsel," Hernandez's attorneys wrote in the federal lawsuit.
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The suit charges that Securus was negligent in securing its database, noting that the company reportedly first learned of a potential breach in 2011, and says it misrepresented the supposedly secure nature of inmates' communications.
Because Hernandez used the phone system to speak not only with family and friends while awaiting trial, but with his attorneys, the lawsuit argues that his rights as a defendant could have been compromised by the hack.
The lawsuit asks the court to "award damages of an amount to be established at trial" that it deems "just and proper."
Hernandez is awaiting trial in a July 2012 double homicide in Boston that occurred nearly a year before Lloyd's murder.
