Ex-New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the July 2012 killings of two men in Boston, authorities said Thursday.

Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, the victims in the 2012 killing, were shot to death in a car as they waited at a red light in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Hernandez pulled his SUV up alongside the vehicle and fired multiple shots from a .38-calibre revolver into the passenger’s side. De Abreu, the driver, was shot several times and fatally hit in the chest, and Furtado, who was in the front passenger seat, was struck multiple times and gravely wounded with a shot to the head, the district attorney said.

Two backseat passengers escaped injury and ran from the car. A third man remained in the car and suffered a wound to his arm, Conley said.

Aaron Hernandez ambushed and shot the two men after a chance encounter inside a Boston nightclub, prosecutors said. The Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley did not elaborate on what happened in the nightclub. Conley said there was no evidence that Hernandez knew the victims prior to that evening.

Weeks after the double shooting, Hernandez signed a five-year deal worth about $40 million with the New England Patriots. A spokesman for the Patriots said the team had no comment.

Hernandez is also awaiting trial in the June 2013 shooting death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd near Hernandez’s North Attleborough home. He is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to murder in Lloyd’s death.

Conley said the investigation of the Boston killings moved forward after the Lloyd case, which will be tried separately in another Massachusetts court. He declined to say whether authorities suspected any link between the Boston and North Attleborough shootings.

Hernandez is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of armed assault with intent to murder, as well as unlawful possession of the gun used in the attack.

In February 2014, the de Abreu and Furtado families filed lawsuits against Hernandez, with each family seeking $6 million.