Tom Brady was very happy celebrating his Super Bowl LI winning effort by high-fives and cheers after his post-match news conference. Then, Brady's next stop was at Patriots' locker room where he was scheduled to join his teammates and staff to continue celebrating their victory.
Brady wore a jersey that had "Super Bowl champions: We All Are Patriots" written on it. He entered the locker room and withing minutes of his arrival, his jersey he wore during game was disappeared, this information is given as per the video captured by Fox Sports.
Apparently, there were no security cameras inside the Patriots' auxiliary locker room. Several media outlets had multiple footage of the incidents, including that of Fox Sports. The Houston Police Department requested the media outlets to support them with a video before or during the theft.
The Police Department worked a lot find something, some tireless work from likes of NFL security, Patriots own security, FBI and an assistant U.S attorney, they managed to find something that helped this case. There was a man outside U.S with Tom Brady's jersey. His name was Martin Mauricio Ortega, who was a former Diario La Prensa executive but more significantly, he recently resigned from a Spanish newspaper who obtained an access to locker room and subsequently the jersey.
Now, the next part was to find the jersey. Several agencies saw the video tape and they saw Ortega entering the locker room with a black leather bag through the side of doors behind Patriots' Belichick and others. The video showed Belichick moving in one direction and Ortega towards other direction that is the players' area.
By that time, Brady came to the room to put his jersey back to his personal black leather handbag and leave again for removing his eye black. The video showed that the jersey was out enough to be grabbed and taken away. Ortega is seen approaching that bag and taking the jersey, keeping it in his own plastic bag and leaving. He hasn't been arrested as of current situation.
Brady returned to the locker room and saw no jersey in his personal bag, he asked equipment assistant Brendan Murphy whether he saw his jersey. Murphy then checks everywhere with Brady but the jersey was nowhere to be found. Later, Brady realised someone has stolen the jersey, said those were the special ones he wanted to keep. It was his memento from a special night.
The search for the jersey finally concluded on Monday with the agencies still checking the authenticity of this jersey. FBI, Houston Police Department, U.S attorney and Patriots' security all had to put similar efforts to find the memorable jersey.
Ofcourse, Brady being in the case's central figure, the issue is bigger than it would be. This is not the first time Brady's jersey is gone missing after a Super Bowl victory, the same thing happened two years back at Grendale. To identify Ortega, FBI, Patriots' security collected the information about how many credentials were issued that Super Bowl LI day. There were 20,00 credentials as it turned out.
By getting the clues from video, they narrowed the search to 1,400 credentials, at photo number 847 they found Ortega. When these things were taking place, FBI came revealed that a social media account (now deleted) posted an image of him having the Super Bowl XLIX jersey. The agency thinks Tom Brady's missing jersey from two years can be with the same man.
Although, the items are in authentication process whether they are original or not, it pretty much seems the jersey is found and the thief will be caught pretty soon.
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