Robert Kraft: If Guilty Aaron Hernandez Duped Us
By Mike Dyce
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft addressed reporters from ESPNBoston.com, The Boston Globe and Boston Herald in his office for 40-minutes. It was the first time he addressed the ongoing situation with Aaron Hernandez.
“If this stuff is true, then I’ve been duped and our whole organization has been duped,” Kraft said.
His comments almost echo other sentiments other players have said about Hernandez, like former wide receiver Deion Branch.
Kraft said the Patriots “made a mistake and are facing it head on” and will “renew efforts and look at procedures.”
“You can be sure we’ll be looking at our procedures and auditing how we do things,” Kraft said, via ESPN Boston.
He also had a message for the Lloyd family.
“My heart goes out to the Lloyd family,” he said. “I feel bad that someone connected to our organization is connected to this.”
Robert Kraft opened by reading a statement:
"“Following Aaron’s arrest, I read a number of different accounts of how things transpired in our organization. Let me be clear: We decided the week prior to Aaron’s arrest that if Aaron was arrested in connection with the Lloyd murder case that we would cut him immediately after,” he said.“The rationale behind that decision was that if any member of the New England Patriots organization is close enough to a murder investigation to actually get arrested — whether it be for obstruction of justice or the crime itself, it is too close to an unthinkable act for that person to be part of this organization going forward.”"
But once someone walks through that door, you don’t know what is going on.
“When he was in our building, we never saw anything where he was not polite. He was always respectful to me. We only know what’s going on inside the building. We don’t put private eyes on people,” he said.