Karen Read, Aidan "Turtleboy" Kearney in court together as judge refuses to delay trial
The Karen Read case was back in a Dedham, Massachusetts courtroom on Thursday less than two weeks before jury selection is scheduled to begin. Prosecutors started the day seeking to use messages between Read and Aidan Kearney, the blogger who writes under the name "Turtleboy," while the judge then denied defense attorneys' efforts to delay the start of the trial.
Read is charged in the 2022 death of Boston police officer John O'Keefe, who she was dating at the time. Prosecutors say Read hit and killed O'Keefe with her SUV and left him to die in the snow outside a Canton home following a night of drinking.
Read says she is being framed as part of a coverup by several people including law enforcement. She has pleaded not guilty to all three charges against her. Read's first trial ended last year in a mistrial due to a hung jury.
Thursday's hearing was helping set the ground rules for the upcoming trial, with Judge Beverly Cannone deciding what evidence will be allowed and excluded.
Third-party culprit defense
Attorney David Yannetti told Cannone that like in the first trial, Read's team plans to mount a third-party culprit defense. They argue that three men could be responsible for O'Keefe's death instead of Read - Brian Albert, Brian Higgins, or Colin Albert.
Brian Albert is a retired Boston police officer who at the time owned the Canton home where O'Keefe's body was found in the snow. In the first trial, defense attorneys claimed O'Keefe could have been dragged outside after he was killed during a fight inside the home.
Colin Albert, Brian Albert's nephew who was a teenager at the time O'Keefe died, was drinking inside the home the night the body was found in the snow.
It was revealed during the first trial that Higgins, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent who was out drinking with the group that included O'Keefe and Brian Albert, previously exchanged flirty text messages with Read.
The prosecution wants to exclude the third-party culprit defense from the second trial. There was discussion at sidebar over the issue, but no ruling was made.
Michael Proctor fired by Massachusetts State Police
On Wednesday, Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in the case, was fired by Massachusetts State Police for his conduct handling Read's case.
The prosecution had previously filed a motion to prohibit reference to any pending internal affairs investigations.
Brennan said Thursday he now needs time before arguing that motion since Proctor has been fired and the state has since been provided with internal affairs documents but has not yet had a chance to review them.
Cannone gave Brennan until March 28 to go through the documents and mark anything that is disputed or that they feel should be excluded. The defense will then let Cannone know by April 1 how much time they need to form their rebuttal at a hearing.
Karen Read attorneys added to witness list
On Thursday, prosecutors filed an updated witness list in the case, adding Read's defense attorneys Alan Jackson, Yannetti and Elizabeth Little.
It is unclear why the attorneys have been added to the witness list and the topic has not been addressed in court.
Debate over ARCCA witnesses
On Tuesday, Cannone scolded attorney Alan Jackson and the defense team for "repeated misrepresentations" to the court. But Cannone opted not to remove any lawyers from the case.
At the center of that exchange was Cannone's opinion that defense attorneys were not being truthful about their relationship with expert crash reconstruction witnesses from ARCCA. Despite her issues with attorneys' behavior, Cannone ruled that ARCCA witnesses would be allowed to testify at the second trial.
On Thursday, special prosecutor Hank Brennan argued against a defense motion seeking to allow evidence of lack of bias for the ARCCA witnesses. The ARCCA witnesses were hired by the U.S. Attorney's office as part of a federal investigation into the handling of the case, which has since closed without charges.
Brennan argued that the witnesses were not unbiased.
"The Commonwealth does not have a clear answer why this investigation was initiated, what the purpose truly was, the scope of it, all the witnesses," Brennan said, adding "Clearly there was an undefined relationship between the defense and the U.S. Attorney's office when this investigation was created."
Defense attorney David Yannetti maintained that "the defense wants the jury to know the truth."
"We did not hire them, influence their opinions, we did not even know they existed," Yannetti said.
Cannone originally said the ARCCA witnesses will need to appear in court next week for a voir dire hearing, but later said the hearing can instead happen the day before they testify in trial.
Judge won't delay Karen Read trial
Read's second trial is scheduled to start on April 1, but in a new motion this week, Read's defense team requested to move the retrial until at least April 25 because of her ongoing federal appeal.
Cannone indicated Tuesday that the request would be challenging because jurors have already been called for duty for April 1.
On Thursday, she denied the motion. Cannone said that if a jury is seated before April 25, jurors won't be sworn in and she will revisit the issue with Read's attorneys.
WBZ-TV has learned that 275 people per day have been called for jury duty starting April 1 to try to find an impartial jury for this highly publicized case.
Karen Read prosecutors seek messages with "Turtleboy"
Before the main hearing got underway around 10 a.m. Thursday, there was a separate hearing in a related matter before a different judge regarding Kearney's phones.
Kearney is facing witness intimidation charges over alleged behavior toward people who are witnesses in Read's trial.
Brennan is seeking messages from two phones that are in possession of the Norfolk District Attorney's office. Brennan said he expects evidence will show that the relationship between Read and Kearney was used to intimidate and harass witnesses.
Prosecutors in Read's case previously said they plan to use the phone records to show "evidence of the defendant's statements and actions to intimidate witnesses from testifying against her as evidence of her consciousness of guilt."
Though Read was not initially in the courtroom when Kearney's hearing got underway, she entered several minutes in along with her attorneys and sat at a table along with Kearney and his attorney, Timothy Bradl.
Brennan objected to Read's presence at the table, saying she had no standing to be present. The judge overruled and allowed her to be present as arguments began.
Bradl called the request "the ultimate fishing expedition."
"Maybe they're distasteful, maybe they're obnoxious, but they're all protected by the first amendment," Bradl argued about things Kearney says.
The judge took arguments under advisement and did not issue a ruling on Thursday.
Who is Karen Read?
Read, a 45-year-old financial analyst, was living in Mansfield at the time of O'Keefe's death.
She is charged with second-degree murder, leaving the scene of bodily injury or death, and manslaughter under the influence of alcohol.
Read has pleaded not guilty to all charges against her.
The case will next be in Dedham's Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday at 11 a.m. for another pretrial hearing.
