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BOSTON — Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, in his first court appearance since his April murder conviction, pleaded not guilty Thursday to witness intimidation in the shooting of his onetime friend Alexander Bradley.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan described Bradley, who survived the February 2013 shooting, as “the only person who could implicate” Hernandez in a 2012 double homicide in Boston. Hernandez is awaiting trial on double murder charges in the Boston killings.

Hernandez was unshaven, but wore a suit and tie for his afternoon arraignment Thursday. A new tattoo was visible under his shirt collar, featuring the word “LIFETIME” scrawled above a large star on his neck — ink that he has added since he was sentenced last month to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the June 2013 killing of Odin Lloyd, the boyfriend of his fiancee’s sister.

Bradley, a Hartford resident who lost his right eye when he was shot, is one of the government’s top witnesses in the July 2012 double homicide case. Prosecutors say that he was in the passenger seat when Hernandez pulled up next to a car stopped at a traffic light, rolled down his window and opened fire — killing Daniel de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, both Cape Verdean immigrants who lived in Dorchester.

Seven months later, after Bradley made a comment about the Boston “stuff,” Hernandez shot him in the face and left him to die, Haggan said Thursday.

In the months after the double homicide, while Hernandez was playing his third and final season with the Patriots, “Bradley distinctly noticed that Mr. Hernandez became increasingly paranoid and fearful” that law enforcement was watching him or investigating him, the prosecutor said.

The Patriots lost the AFC Championship game in January 2013, and Hernandez took a trip to Florida the following month. He invited Bradley.

The prosecutor described an exchange that the two friends had at a nightclub one night, after Hernandez noticed two men and told Bradley that he “thought these two men were undercover officers and they were watching him.”

According to Haggan, Bradley’s response was “something to the effect of, ‘It’s probably because of the stupid stuff you did up there in Boston.'”

The next night, Hernandez and Bradley went to Tootsie’s strip club in Miami, where they engaged in an argument over payment of the bill, according to Bradley’s version of events. Financial records that were included in evidence in the Lloyd trial show that Hernandez spent $814 at Tootsie’s that night — a fraction of the tab at Tootsie’s two nights earlier, when Hernandez paid $9,404.

After leaving the strip club, Hernandez and Bradley had a subsequent argument about a telephone that Bradley had left behind, Haggan said. Bradley fell asleep in the car, and awoke to Hernandez’s pointing a handgun in his face, the prosecutor said, describing how Bradley was shot and pushed out of the car. Bradley did not tell police who shot him, but filed a civil lawsuit several months later that named Hernandez as the gunman. Hernandez does not face criminal charges in Florida.

The civil suit does not mention the 2012 double homicide, a cold case investigation until evidence recovered in the Lloyd case helped authorities identify Hernandez as a suspect and eventually make an arrest. The murder weapon in the Boston case, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, was seized in summer 2013 from a car driven by a Bristol, Conn., woman who has mutual friends with Hernandez.

Prosecutors filed a motion Thursday to combine the witness intimidation case with the seven-count indictment charging Hernandez with murder in the Boston killings. Combining the cases would allow them to introduce the Bradley shooting into evidence at the double homicide trial. Bristol County prosecutors who tried Hernandez for murder in Lloyd’s death were not allowed to introduce the Bradley shooting into evidence after the judge sided with defense lawyers who argued that the allegations would be too prejudicial and compromise Hernandez’s right to a fair trial.

A pretrial hearing in the Boston case was scheduled for June 4. Bradley is incarcerated in Connecticut, pending trial on charges that he shot up the front of a Hartford nightclub in 2014. No one was injured.