Carlos Ortiz Pleads Guilty as Accessory in Aaron Hernandez's Murder Case

Stephan Savoia/Associated Press

Carlos Ortiz pleaded guilty on Monday to accessory to murder after the fact for his role in the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, according to Thomas M. Quinn III, the district attorney of Bristol, Massachusetts.

Ortiz was sentenced to four-and-a-half to seven years in prison.   

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was found guilty of murdering Lloyd in April 2015 and sentenced to life in prison.

In exchange for Ortiz's guilty plea, prosecutors dropped the pending murder charges against him, according to the Associated Press. Per that report, "Ortiz told the judge that Hernandez and Lloyd got out of the car together, he heard a shot, looked back and only Hernandez got back in."

Prosecutors had maintained that both Ortiz and Ernest Wallace—who was convicted of the same crime as Ortiz and received the same sentence in May, though he was acquitted of murder—were in the car with Hernandez and had conspired to kill Lloyd alongside the former football player, per Travis Andersen of the Boston Globe.

Ultimately, however, neither man was convicted of murder.

Hernandez remains accused of murdering Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston in July 2012, though he pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and weapons charges.

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