PLYMOUTH, Mass. (Court TV) — Karen Read has asked a judge to dismiss part of the lawsuit filed against her by John O’Keefe’s family, claiming the suit has no legal basis.
Karen Read listens during her trial at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Mass., Friday, May 2, 2025. (Mark Jarret Chavous/The Enterprise via AP, Pool)
Read stood trial twice on charges that she murdered O’Keefe, who was her boyfriend. O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, was found dead in the snow outside a friend and fellow officer’s home after a night out drinking. While prosecutors claimed that Read hit O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV while drunk and left him to die in the snow, the jury cleared Read of murder charges. She was convicted of driving under the influence and sentenced to probation.
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In 2024, O’Keefe’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Read and the bars she, O’Keefe and their friends visited before his death. While her part of the lawsuit was on hold pending the outcome of her criminal trial, Read’s legal team has now filed a motion to dismiss several counts of the suit, which allege emotional distress.
Read claims there is no basis in law for the claims of emotional distress, which her attorneys argue is encompassed by the wrongful death claim itself. Read argues that because O’Keefe’s family was not present at the scene when the alleged accident occurred and only saw his body at the hospital more than seven hours later, they have no standing to claim distress related to his death.
In a response, the O’Keefes said that there is no “bright line” test for the infliction of emotional distress, and that it’s too early to evaluate the strength of their claims because discovery has not been completed. Part of the discovery that the O’Keefes are seeking relates to Read’s relationship with blogger Aiden Kearney, also known as Turtleboy.
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The O’Keefes have accused Read of inflicting emotional distress through her statements to the media, the police and Kearney. “At various points in time, [Kearney] made comments about influencing Read’s jury pool, arresting the people who killed John O’Keefe, and inferred during a rally that the O’Keefe family’s period of grief had ‘expired’ and they were now fair game for ‘trying to send an innocent woman to jail for the rest of her life.'”
Read filed a reply, noting that the O’Keefes have not served any written discovery or attempted to take depositions from anyone other than Read’s immediate family for months in the case, despite the conclusion of the criminal trial.
Read’s motion is scheduled to be heard on Sept. 22.
