Ahead of Karen Read's murder trial next month, Massachusetts prosecutors are pushing back against her defense's motion to dismiss her case.
Read is charged with the second-degree murder of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, who was found dead two years ago outside a Canton home.
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The case has drawn national attention. The state alleges Read hit O'Keefe with her vehicle and left him for dead in the snow, while Read alleges she is being framed in a large-scale coverup.
In documents filed Friday in Norfolk Superior Court and shared Wednesday with NBC10 Boston, the office of Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey argues that the case should not be thrown out.
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Prosecutors accuse Read's team of malfeasance and intentionally manipulating public opinion.
"Over the past two years, evidence sought by and presented to the Commonwealth has not shown any credible evidence that another individual is responsible for John O'Keefe's death," the DA's office wrote. "What began as Attorney [David] Yannetti representing to the Stoughton District Court in February 2022 that the defendant lacked any criminal intent in a motor vehicle accident, has spiraled into a national conspiracy theory premised upon the defendant's variety of flawed, unfounded, and sensationalized claims."
Read and O'Keefe were out drinking Jan. 28, 2022, with a group of people including Boston Police Officer Brian Albert. Members of the group went back to Albert's Fairview Road home, and Read says she dropped O'Keefe off there and went home. He was found the next morning and pronounced dead at a hospital.
Prosecutors allege Read hit O'Keefe with her SUV and left him to die. But Read's attorneys have said evidence points to O'Keefe being attacked inside the home and brought outside, arguing, among other points, that the wounds on his body were not consistent with a crash.
The defense has also argued that Jennifer McCabe, who was in the group that went out and returned to Albert's home, Googled "ho[w] long to die in cold" hours before 911 was called to report O'Keefe had been found.
The district attorney's office said in the documents filed Friday that it "diligently investigated" Read's claims — including looking at McCabe's cellphone records, which prosecutors said showed she made the search later in the morning, when she and Read were together after the discovery of O'Keefe's body.
"All of these measures were taken by the Commonwealth to acquire any exculpatory evidence and to safeguard and protect the integrity of the judicial system, not subvert it as the defendant has claimed," prosecutors wrote.
Morrissey's office claims Yannetti and fellow defense attorney Alan Jackson knowingly made false statements "to deceive this court and undermine the integrity of the judicial proceedings," and that they "have secretly conspired to perpetuate fraud upon the court through reckless mistruths, deceit, and hiding behind a social media blogger who has been criminally charged with intimidation of witnesses, to direct and encourage the harassment of those witnesses."
Blogger Aidan Kearney, better known as Turtleboy, has long advocated on Read's behalf. Last month, an affidavit from the Massachusetts State Police alleged that Read sent him confidential information in more than 40 hours of conversations during 189 phone calls and other methods of communication. She allegedly provided personal details about witnesses, autopsy photographs, crime scene photographs, images of her car and the 911 call made when O'Keefe's body was found.
Kearney's coverage of the case, which has garnered extensive attention, had previously led prosecutors to charge him with witness intimidation.
"Free Karen Read" merchandise with the Turtleboy logo remains available for sale on his site, and past stories have said proceeds go to a fund for Read's legal defense. In posts since the revelation, Kearney said he had not admitted publicly to communicating with Read because she "was an anonymous source." His attorney called it "an investigation without a crime," claiming "The only crime here is the robbery of privacy."
In the new documents, prosecutors said a search warrant of Read's phone found that, "Beginning on or around April 17th, 2023, the defendant took deliberate action to start sharing defense theories, privileged materials, and evidence with Mr. Kearney through an out-of-state intermediary." The following day, Kearney posted his first story about the case.
The district attorney's office also argued said in the documents that Read's attorneys corresponded with Kearney, encouraging him to harass and intimidate witnesses.
Additionally, prosecutors said Read violated pretrial conditions requiring her to stay away from O'Keefe's family. She was allegedly seen in Ring doorbell video in a vehicle outside the home of the officer's niece and nephew in September of 2023.
Prosecutors also shared a letter from Morrissey to the Office of Professional Responsibility with the U.S. Department of Justice. In it, he asked for a federal examination of an investigation into the case by the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts.
The letter was dated dated May 18, 2023, one day after U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins announced her resignation following a monthslong investigation into abuse-of-power allegations.
Morrissey claimed Rollins "made no secret of her personal animosity" toward him, "including repeated crude, outlandish personal and professional attacks against me during her time as Suffolk District Attorney." Accusing Rollins of weaponizing the office against him, Morrissey argued that "the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts must be removed from whatever investigation is being conducted into the Read matter."
NBC10 Boston reached out to Karen Read's legal team Wednesday but has not yet heard back. The U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts declined to comment.
The trial is set to begin March 12, despite a recent request from both prosecutors and Read's defense to push it back.
