BOSTON (AP) _ A cousin of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez is expected to plead guilty to a contempt charge for refusing to testify before the grand jury that indicted Hernandez in the 2012 killings of two Boston men.
A change-of-plea and sentencing hearing is scheduled for Tanya Singleton in Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday.
Singleton pleaded guilty to a separate contempt charge last month in Bristol County for refusing to testify before the grand jury that indicted Hernandez in a third killing _ the 2013 shooting of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd.
Singleton, of Bristol, Connecticut, has been battling a recurrence of breast cancer.
Her lawyer, E. Peter Parker, said in a sentencing memo that her cancer is incurable. He argues that she cannot receive adequate medical treatment if she is sent to jail.
“Ms. Singleton’s best chance to maximize the time she has left with some semblance of quality of life would be to maintain a complex and increasingly aggressive treatment regimen implemented by the Connecticut physician who has been treating her since her original cancer diagnosis three years ago,” Parker wrote.
Parker is asking a judge to spare her jail time and instead sentence her to two years of probation with a year of home confinement, the same sentence she received in Bristol County.
Parker said Singleton, who is 17 years older than Hernandez, “loves him as if he were her own son.” He said she “chose family” when she was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury investigating her cousin.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to murder in the deaths of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado after one of the men accidentally spilled a drink on him at a Boston nightclub. He has also pleaded not guilty to murder in Lloyd’s killing.