It was one of the most scandalous murder cases in sports history when disgraced footballer Aaron Hernandez was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing his friend Odin Lloyd. Two years after his conviction, he would commit suicide in his jail cell.
Since his death, his former fiancé Shayanna Jenkins- Hernandez received over $830,000 to care for her daughter, Avielle, who she shares with Hernandez.
As Avielle’s conservator, she received Hernandez’s NFL pension and social security which came to a total of $150,000 a year, according to court documents. But suspicions have been raised about how she has spent the money and the lawyer of Avielle’s trust says her spending habits “merit scrutiny.”
Last September, reports say Jenkins-Hernandez requested $10,000 for the 10-year-old’s dance lessons from a trust created in her daughter’s name. An independent third-party trustee denied the request, stating that Jenkins-Hernandez should already have enough money to cover the cost.
“$832,040.83 [has been] available to her since her appointment as conservator to pay for dance lessons,” the trustee wrote in court documents.
Furthermore, Attorney Robert O’Regan has begun to suspect Jenkins-Hernandez is misappropriating the funds. From 2018 to 2021, Jenkins-Hernandez has reported more than $10,000 in bounced check service charges, according to court documents. She also reported spending $27,878.54 on clothing, $23,734.99 in home goods and $18,406,04 in “unexplained” ATM withdrawals. She also made a $3720 payment to Bay Path University, a local college in Massachusetts.
“Large amounts of money are spent… with little clear identification of how these disbursements benefit Avielle,” O’Regan wrote.
Jenkins’ lawyer released a statement to Boston 25 stating that “the allegations made against my client are unfounded, and I have, and will continue to, respond to such allegations on behalf of my client through the legal process. My client is a devoted mother doing her best to provide a stable life for her children, which is why she created the Trust in question in the first place. The facts, when presented in full, will bear these truths out.”
Meanwhile, O’Regan is requesting that Jenkins-Hernandez be removed as Avielle’s conservator and seeks full accounting of Jenkins-Hernandez’s spending in 2022.
“My client has fiduciary duty to Avielle. It is more or less the same duty that Shayanna has as conservator. It is to see to it the resources her father left behind for Avielle are used to support Avielle,” Jenkins-Hernandez’s lawyer said.
At the time of this writing, a court date has not been set in the case.
