The Karen Read murder trial is scheduled to begin next month, but an important hearing was held in the case on Tuesday that could affect the trajectory of the trial.
Read — accused of killing John O'Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, in Canton, Massachusetts, in 2022 — last appeared in court on Feb. 26, when Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone set a new trial date of April 16 after thousands of pages of new evidence were received from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts.
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Read's attorneys argued Tuesday that the criminal charges against their client should be dismissed and that the district attorney overseeing the case disqualified, while prosecutors pushed for her trial to proceed as scheduled next month. Read was in court for the hearing, and was seen smiling during portions of the arguments by the prosecution.
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Defense attorney Alan Jackson argued Tuesday that the criminal charges against Read should be dismissed because prosecutors and their investigators distorted evidence on multiple occasions. He said several of the police investigators involved in the case, including Canton Police Sgt. Michael Lank and Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, had longstanding relationships with witnesses in the case and that was never mentioned to grand jurors.
"That conflict was never described to the grand jury and we've been rebuffed at every single turn," he said.
Jackson referred to text messages between Proctor and a family member about having a relative of one of the witnesses in the case babysit for his toddler. He also cited another text sent from Proctor's sister to Proctor where his sister referenced a member of that same family saying, "when all this is over she wants to give you a thank you gift."
"For two years, the Commonwealth has been denying it, and still denies it," he said.
Jackson also said that Proctor used a Canton police officer who is related to a key witness to help coordinate with witnesses.
And in what he called "the most obvious distortion of facts," Jackson said prosecutors hid the fact that one of the witnesses in the case had made a Google search for "ho[w] long to die in cold" at 2:27 a.m. on the night O'Keefe was killed.
"Any one of these examples would be enough to dismiss the charges as they sit here today, but the cumulative effect of this deception is too much for the court to ignore," Jackson said in asking for the dismissal of the indictment.
But Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally countered that the defense is just trying to distract from the evidence pointing to Read being the killer.
"The defense is trying to say, 'Look the other way.' It's a three-card monte trick. 'Look at this relationship, look at that relationship.' The defense is obfuscating from the extensive evidence. They don't want you to look at that. They want you to look at who texted who when," he said.
Defense attorney David Yannetti also argued a separate motion to disqualify Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey from prosecuting the case, based mostly on a video the district attorney released last summer condemning the harassment of witnesses in the Read case.
"DA Morrissey has an interest in this case not to do justice, but to win," Yannetti said. "My client deserves a neutral, impartial prosecutor. Morrissey isn't that. That is why he should be disqualified."
But Lally said Morrissey released the video specifically because key witnesses in the case were being harassed and he wanted to put a stop to it.
Cannone did not issue a ruling on either motion on Tuesday, instead taking them under advisement. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 20.
She did however note that Read's trial is expected to last all day on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, and half-days — just the mornings — of Tuesdays and Thursdays.
