Two updates came Monday in the Karen Read case, as her attorneys filed a motion to dismiss charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a deadly crash, and the Massachusetts State Police suspended Trooper Michael Proctor without pay.
Karen Read is moving to dismiss two of the three charges against her, including murder, with her attorneys saying they've heard the jury had unanimously concluded she was not guilty of either charge.
Read filed the motion to dismiss in Norfolk Superior Court on Monday, a week after a mistrial was declared in the murder case against her, leaving unresolved a case that's attracted attention far beyond Massachusetts — Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, during a snowstorm outside a Canton home in January 2022, though her team has maintained that she was framed.
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Read was charged with murder in the second degree, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of liquor and leaving a scene of personal injury and death. She pleaded not guilty.
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When she declared the mistrial, Judge Beverly Cannone didn't provide any insight into how the jury voted. The jury's notes didn't indicate they were close to a rendering a verdict on any of the charges.
In Monday's filing, her lawyers wrote that they "began receiving unsolicited communications from three of the twelve deliberating jurors indicating in no uncertain terms that the jury had a firm 12-0 agreement that Ms. Read was not guilty of two of the three charges against her, including the charge of murder in the second degree."
Read the Karen Read team's new post-mistrial motion to dismiss filings here.
The document was filed by two lawyers Read used throughout the trial, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, as well as a new lawyer, Martin Weinberg, who was added to her team Monday as a limited appearance counsel.
In separate documents filed Monday, Jackson and Yannetti detail how they were informed about the jury's discussion. Jackson said one juror reached out to him directly on Tuesday after "seeing inaccurate reports about the 'split' among the jurors related to the mistrial," while Yannetti said he heard from two intermediaries who'd heard from jurors.
A representative for the Norfolk District Attorney's Office said Monday they were reviewing the motion, anticipated filing a response and looked forward to picking a new trial date — a hearing has already been scheduled for July 22 to set the date.
More on the Karen Read trial
Read's previous attempts to have the case against her dismissed were denied.
Also Monday, the lead investigator in the case, Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, was suspended without pay amid an ongoing internal affairs investigation. He made vulgar, disparaging remarks about Read to friends and family early in the investigation, which Proctor admitted during the trial was unprofessional but insisted did not impact the investigation.
In the defense's motions arguing to dismiss the two charges that the lawyers heard the jury agreed on, they said that it would amount to double jeopardy to prosecute Read on those counts again.
It's not yet clear whether the jury really was in agreement on the two charges. Cannone could schedule an evidentiary hearing "to gauge whether the jurors met and reached a consensus on any of these counts," NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne said.
He noted that there was no indication during the jury's deliberations that they had reached a verdict on any of the charges.
"The note that was submitted to Judge Cannone said that they were hung on the charges — plural. Twice they used the word charges," Coyne said, noting that there was a place on the form the jury submitted to the judge had a place to note they found Read not guilty on any of the charges.
In hindsight, Coyne said, Cannone could have gone through all three charges with the jury before declaring a mistrial.
NBC10 Boston's Marc Fortier contributed to this report.
