DEDHAM, Mass. (Court TV) — Karen Read’s defense attorneys went head-to-head with prosecutors in a contentious two-day hearing ahead of her upcoming retrial on murder charges.
Karen Read and her attorneys appeared in court for a motions hearing on March 4, 2025. (Court TV)
Read and her defense team have been under increased scrutiny in recent weeks after Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan accused them of lying about bias and payments to defense witnesses.
Read’s first trial on charges she killed her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The defense has maintained Read’s innocence and has accused the police and prosecutors of being a part of a wide-ranging cover-up.
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Tensions ran high in court at the start of proceedings on Tuesday as Judge Beverly Cannone questioned Read’s defense team about payments to experts that caused her “grave concerns.” Judge Cannone told Read’s attorneys that each one represents the team whenever they speak or misrepresent to the court. Robert Alessi raised his voice when telling Judge Cannone that he didn’t disclose the payments to experts initially because he didn’t know about it. He said he disagreed with her ruling that he should be responsible for a misstatement he knew nothing about.
Brennan revealed Tuesday that the federal investigation into the case has been closed, though nothing about what was gleaned from that investigation was revealed. Brennan revealed the change in the investigation’s status while proposing that all future motions be filed under seal and all attorneys be placed under a gag order.
Prosecutors have accused Read’s defense of violating a protective order by making public a motion that contained text messages allegedly sent to one of the prosecutors in the case. Read’s attorney, David Yanetti, said releasing the texts was an oversight, not a willful violation of the order.
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On Wednesday, the parties returned to state court following a morning appearance in federal court for a separate motion to dismiss. Read and her attorneys focused on two elements in their arguments in front of Judge Cannone in their request for a dismissal based on “extraordinary governmental misconduct“: allegations of jury tampering and questions over the video showing Read’s vehicle in the Canton Police Department Sally Port.
The jury tampering allegations center around a juror who was dismissed from the case just before Alan Jackson began delivering his closing arguments in Read’s first trial. Jackson identified the person who raised the concerns about the juror, Lt. Fanning, as being involved in the investigation and included in some of Trooper Michael Proctor’s inappropriate text messages.
Trooper Proctor was also tied to the missing Sally Port videos, which were turned over to the defense in pieces, beginning with the inverted video shown during Read’s first trial. Proctor had custody of the videos since 2022, but did not share them with the prosecution or defense team until 2024, in what Brennan has referred to as an “oversight.”
