'Bad boy' Hernandez pleads not guilty to first-degree murder charge

Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez has reportedly pleaded not guilty to the charge of first-degree murder of his friend and a semi-professional football player, Odin Lloyd.

According to Fox News, the two other persons, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, who were allegedly with Hernandez at the time of Lloyd's death, also pleaded not guilty to charges of accessory to murder after the fact and a firearms charge respectively

The prosecution had reportedly said that the former New England Patriots player had killed Lloyd because he had talked to people with whom the Hernandez had problems, at a nightclub a few days prior to his death.

The report further said that Hernandez is also suspected of being involved in a separate 2012 double homicide near a Boston nightclub even as police found an SUV that had been linked to previous deaths at Hernandez's uncle's house, while investigating Lloyd's murder.

Following Hernandez's arrest in June, the Patriots released the tight end, whom the team had signed to a five-year, 40 million-dollar contract last summer, the report added.