Man Says He Lost Eye After NFL's Aaron Hernandez Shot Him in South Florida in February: Lawsuit

An attorney for Alexander S. Bradley said his lawsuit was voluntarily dropped and then refiled to correct a mistake

A lawsuit alleging that NFL player Aaron Hernandez shot a man in the face following an argument at a Miami Gardens strip club was voluntarily dropped and then refiled to fix a mistake, an attorney for the plaintiff said.

The initial lawsuit by Alexander S. Bradley, filed last Thursday, said that he and Hernandez, a tight end for the New England Patriots, had an argument at the Miami Gardens strip club Tootsie’s Cabaret on Feb. 13.

As they drove with two other people to Palm Beach, Hernandez’s gun fired while he was aiming it at Bradley, causing injuries that included the loss of his right eye, the suit said.

A landscaping business employee found Bradley lying outside in a fetal position on the 3700 block of Fiscal Court in Riviera Beach, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. Bradley told the employee’s manager to call 911, saying, “Tell them to hurry – I’m gonna bleed out,” a detective wrote in a report.

Bradley told the manager he didn’t know who hurt him. The investigation ended because Bradley refused to cooperate with it, according to the sheriff’s office.

But Bradley said in his lawsuit that because of Hernandez’s negligence, he has had multiple surgeries to reconstruct his face in the area of his eye, had plates and screws inserted in his face and has suffered extreme pain. Bradley has become substantially disabled and “will require extensive medical care and treatment for the rest of his life,” said the suit, which sought damages.

David Jaroslawicz, an attorney for Bradley, said the lawsuit filed last week had a mistake.

“He did not have screws and plates in his arm, only in his head," he said of Bradley.

They voluntarily discontinued the lawsuit because of that inaccuracy, corrected it and then refiled the suit, he said in a brief phone interview with NBC 6 South Florida.

A federal court judge in Miami dismissed the initial lawsuit on Monday. The suit was filed again on Wednesday, said Elizabeth Eilender, another lawyer who represents Bradley.

“There's either two ways the gun went off, either he intentionally shot him in the head or it was an accident, and I'm going to assume and take the leap that he's gonna say it was an accident," Eilender said.

Separately, state police returned to Hernandez’s home in North Attleborough, Massachusetts on Wednesday, two days after a body was found about a mile away in an industrial park. Authorities identified the man as 27-year-old Odin Lloyd and ruled that he was a homicide victim. His family said he was a semipro football player with a connection to Hernandez.

"It has been widely reported in the media that the state police have searched the home of our client, Aaron Hernandez, as part of an ongoing investigation," his attorney Michael Fee said in a statement. "Out of respect for that process, neither we nor Aaron will have any comment about the substance of that investigation until it has come to a conclusion."

The Bristol County district attorney's office said investigators were asking for the public's help to find a silver mirror cover believed to have broken off a car between Boston and North Attleborough.

A woman who answered the phone at the Athletes First agency, which represents Hernandez, said Athletes First has no comment on either the Massachusetts situation or the Miami lawsuit.

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