When it comes to sports, taxpayer dollars pay for plenty of things. When it comes to former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, nearly a half of a million dollars in public money funded the prosecution that resulted in his conviction for the murder of Odin Lloyd.
Via the Associated Press, prosecutors spent over $462,000 on overtime for state police ($360,462.30) and expenses for expert witnesses and travel ($101,834.64). That’s over and above the normal salaries paid to the many people who worked on the case -- efforts that otherwise could have been devoted to other cases.
“It would be impossible to quantify man hours of prosecutors and staff,” Bristol County, Massachusetts district attorney spokesman Greg Miliote wrote in an email to the AP.
More money will be spent in connection with the appeal of Hernandez’s conviction, and even more will be spent by prosecutors in Boston in connection with the unrelated double murder charges against Hernandez arising from a drive-by shooting in July 2012.