Two associates of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, who is charged with killing a man in North Attleborough, Mass. last year, are now also facing murder charges.

Ernest Wallace, 42, and Carlos Ortiz, 28, were handed murder indictments by a grand jury Friday for the slaying of Odin L. Lloyd in June 2013, The Boston Globe reports.

Ortiz and Wallace, both of Bristol, Conn., were charged months ago as accessories after the fact in the murder of Lloyd, who was found fatally shot in an industrial park near Hernandez's home.

No explanation was given for the indictments.

Lawyers for Ortiz and Wallace criticized the indictments, saying the timing of the murder counts came about 10 months after they were first arrested.

"Ernest Wallace did not shoot or kill anyone," said his attorney, David Meier. "The nature and timing of this new charge against Mr. Wallace speaks for itself. One can only ask, is it based on the facts and the law, or something else? Ernest Wallace looks forward to confronting his accusers in a court of law."

John Connors, Ortiz's lawyer, said his client was first charged with a weapons violation, which was eventually dropped. He said he does not think prosecutors introduced any new evidence to justify the new murder count.

"We started out having a gun [charge], then accessory after the fact [of murder], and now we're up to first-degree murder," he said. "This is absolutely crazy."

He added, "Is it because they decided that they're not going to use my guy as a witness, and now they're going to squeeze him with this?"

Hernandez, 24, Wallace and Ortiz allegedly picked Lloyd up from his home early on June 17, and drove him to an industrial park in North Attleborough. Lloyd, 27, was then shot multiple times in what prosecutors deemed an "execution."

It's alleged that Hernandez set up the murder and summoned Ortiz and Wallace to help carry it out.

For months, only Hernandez was charged with murder. Yet, a state statute stipulates that it is possible for defendants to be convicted of murder if they were present at the time of the killing, or if they knew the murder was going to take place beforehand.

Ortiz's lawyer said the government had never "given him any offers, as far as that goes. I've asked a number of times if we could sit down and talk about it. They've never given me any indication that this [murder indictment] was going to happen."

Rosanna Cavallaro, a professor of criminal law at Suffolk University and former assistant attorney general, said Friday that the new indictments does not mean that plea deals are off the table.

"Now that you've actually been indicted [for murder], that probably has a stronger coercive effect than the possibility [of a murder charge] looming, and not yet real," Cavallaro said.

Yet, Gerard T. Leone Jr., a former Middlesex district attorney who now works at a private practice, told reporters that charging Ortiz and Wallace with the killing could make it easier to persuade a jury to convict Hernandez for murder as a joint venture.

"It's a much more difficult case to have Hernandez as the sole person charged with murder," he said. "You have no joint venture theory against people who are charged with different charges and not the murder ... You can try to proceed if that's your theory, but if you think about doubt and reasonable doubt, the optics alone are difficult."

Arraignment dates have not yet been set for Wallace and Ortiz.