Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, two associates of Aaron Hernandez, were both indicted on separate murder charges for the homicide of Odin Lloyd. Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter announced the grand jury indictments on Friday.
Both men now face separate first-degree murder charges in the shooting death of Lloyd.
"Late this afternoon, a Bristol County Grand Jury returned separate indictments charging both Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, both of Bristol, Conn., with murder connected to the June 2013 homicide of Odin Lloyd in North Attleboro," the Bristol County District Attorneys Office said Friday in a released statement.
The district attorney's office declined to elaborate on the grand jury indictments before the defendants' arraignments. The arraignments haven't yet been scheduled, but they will be open to media.
The murder charges come nearly 10 months after their initial arrests and just months after both were charged as accessories after the fact of murder.
Ortiz was initially considered a likely witness for the prosecution, but issues with his credibility made it become unlikely the prosecution would call him to the stand.
Before Ortiz's accessory charge, the Commonwealth originally charged him with a weapon charge, which later was dropped. His attorney, John Connors, doesn't believe the prosecution has any evidence to warrant an indictment for murder.
"We started out having a gun [charge], then accessory after the fact [of murder], and now we're up to first-degree murder," Connors told the Boston Globe on Friday. "This is absolutely crazy. ... Is this because they decided that they're not going to use my guy as a witness, and now they're going to squeeze him with this?"
Wallace's attorney, David Meier, denied his client's involvement in the homicide and questioned the timing of the grand jury's indictment.
"Ernest Wallace did not shoot or kill anyone," Meier told The Globe. "The nature and timing of this new charge against Mr. Wallace speaks for itself. One can only ask, is it based on the facts and the law, or something else? Ernest Wallace looks forward to confronting his accusers in a court of law."
Both men were acquaintances of Hernandez, who's also charged with the first-degree murder of Lloyd and is currently being held without bail while awaiting trial.
The prosecution has yet to say whom they believe actually pulled the trigger. No murder weapon has ever been found, and the case against Hernandez for first-degree murder at this point appears to be largely circumstantial.
