(CN) - The man expected to be the star witness in the upcoming double-murder trial of former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez sued the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office claiming it violated his privacy by providing his photo to CNN and other news outlets.
Alexander Bradley claims to have been with Hernandez in July 2012, when the NFL star allegedly shot and killed Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado outside a Boston nightclub.
Prosecutors say Hernandez later shot Bradley in the face because he wanted to keep his former friend from implicating him in the double slaying.
Bradley lived, but lost his right eye, and the government has since charged Hernandez with witness intimidation as a result of the incident.
Bradley sued Hernandez over his injuries and reportedly settled the case in February 2016.
In the interim, the onetime tight end was convicted of murdering another man, Odin Lloyd, in 2013.
At the time, Lloyd, a semi-pro football player, was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee.
Jury selection in Hernandez's trial for the de Abreu and Furtado murders in the Suffolk Superior Court in Boston continued on Tuesday.
But Bradley is already in court in Miami, claiming that while he was being treated for his face wounds in St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla., members of the sheriff's department slipped into the facility for the sole purpose of capturing images of him they could later provide to the news media.
In a federal complaint filed Feb. 15, Bradley says that on March 31, 2015, CNN broadcast a documentary on the Hernandez case that showed him lying in a bed at St. Mary’s Hospital “seemingly unconscious, bloodied, bandaged and intubated.”
The documentary was called “CNN Special Report: Downward Spiral-Inside the Case against Aaron Hernandez.”
Bradley claims he never authorized St. Mary’s Hospital, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office or CNN to take pictures of him while he was in the hospital.
In November the Manchester, Conn., resident sued Turner Broadcasting System Inc. aka CNN, over the same photos, saying the cable news network “unreasonably” publicized his private life in its documentary film about Hernandez.
In his latest lawsuit, Bradley alleges St. Mary’s allowed Palm Beach County police officers to enter his hospital room and photograph him, and then the sheriff’s office gave those pictures to CNN without his consent.
According to the complaint, the CNN documentary has been broadcast several times since its initial airing, and it is also available on the Internet.
Bradley says the documentary has been viewed more than 50,000 times on YouTube alone.
He is seeking compensatory damages on claims of invasion of privacy and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
He is represented by Robert Berke and Jeffrey Cooper in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Barry Wax in Miami, Fla.
Representatives of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and the St. Mary’s hospital did not respond to telephone messages seeking comment on the case.
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