Read speaks, attys push for records in pre-trial clash

By Jay Turner

A flurry of new pre-trial motions in the murder case against Karen Read, including a bid by her legal team to subpoena two key witnesses as part of an evidentiary hearing request for their cell phone records, culminated last Wednesday with another highly charged showdown between prosecutors and defense attorneys in Norfolk Superior Court.

Read, who would later give her first public comments on the courthouse steps in an impromptu exchange with reporters, is accused of striking her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV and then leaving him to die in a snowstorm outside a home on Fairview Road in the early morning hours on January 29, 2022. She faces a charge of second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence, as well as charges of motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing death.

Prosecutors allege that Read had driven O’Keefe to the home of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston police officer, to attend a party after a night of bar hopping in Canton Center. However, after making a three-point turn to reverse direction, they say that Read allegedly slammed into O’Keefe and fled the scene. Prosecutors allege that she then drove home, and after making dozens of calls to O’Keefe’s phone, she returned to the scene the next morning, where she found O’Keefe unconscious and battered in the snow on Albert’s front lawn.

“I tried to save his life at 6 in the morning,” insisted Read outside the courthouse last week, flanked by her attorneys. “I was covered in his blood. I was the only one that tried to save his life.”

Asked point-blank by a reporter if she killed O’Keefe, Read shot back a look of incredulity before adding, “We know who did it, and we know who spearheaded this cover-up. You all know.”

Just minutes earlier inside the courtroom, Read’s attorneys had laid additional groundwork for a defense strategy that they said is rooted in “third party culpability,” arguing that the evidence in the case not only exonerates their client but directly implicates others.

Notably, Read’s attorneys said O’Keefe’s own cell data suggests that he was inside Albert’s home, and the data they have seen from one of the party goers is particularly alarming — including a google search for the phrase “[how] long to die in cold” made at 2:27 a.m., several hours before O’Keefe was found. (Prosecutors dispute that the search was made at that time and have called into question the methodology used by the defense experts.)

Based on that search alone, as well as evidence of communications between that individual and Albert, they argued that they should be granted access to additional phone records within a limited scope and dismissed the prosecution’s claim of a “fishing expedition.”

“That [claim is] the safe harbor that [prosecutors] constantly run to when they don’t have anything else to argue,” said Attorney Alan Jackson. “We don’t know what we don’t know, that’s true, but we have a good faith belief that information that’s relevant and material to our defense of third party culpability is in the phone and on the records.”

In seeking to subpoena these individuals to testify during the pre-trial process, Read’s attorneys said that became a necessity when the prosecution opposed their request to access the requested phone data, prompting the filing of a Rule 17 motion. (Rule 17 is a Mass. criminal court procedure that guides the process for summonsing witnesses or producing documentary evidence.)

“These are allegations that we’ve made, the commonwealth has contested it, and we need to prove it,” said Attorney David Yannetti.

Greg Henning, attorney for Albert, countered that calling a witness to the stand to justify turning over personal phone records is a slippery slope that could set a dangerous precedent for future cases. Regarding his client specifically, Henning said the “sum total” of the allegation made by the defense is that a phone call was made to his client shortly after O’Keefe was found on his front lawn. “But under the provisions of our law, they can’t just say it’s relevant to their case, snap their fingers, and go into the personal effects of a third party, innocent person who’s related to the case only because they’re a witness,” Henning said.

Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally disputed the notion that prosecutors are “desperately afraid” of what the phone records might produce. “It’s simply that counsel for the defendant needs to comply with the rules,” Lally said. “They need to state actual facts and actual evidence as opposed to the fanciful facts section that’s been submitted to the court.”

Throughout the roughly 75-minute hearing, attorneys for both sides offered radically different interpretations of the evidence cited to date, ranging from the analysis of cell phone time stamps to the validity of Apple Health data to the nature of the relationships between various witnesses and others involved in the criminal investigation. Both the prosecution and defense also cited experts who have drawn markedly different conclusions from the same cellular data, and both sides accused the other of ignoring important details and taking information out of context.

After hearing arguments from the prosecution and defense as well as attorneys for the two potential witnesses, Judge Beverly Cannone ruled against the defense team’s subpoena motions and also declined to grant a formal evidentiary hearing for the cell records request, which had originally been scheduled for the following day, May 25. If it had proceeded as planned, both the defense and prosecution would have been able to call their experts to testify, but Judge Cannone opted instead to hear their oral arguments and take the records request under advisement.

Although prosecutors did not object to an evidentiary hearing at their previous court date on May 3, David Traub, spokesman for the Norfolk DA’s office, explained in an email that such a hearing is at the discretion of the judge and is not provided for under Rule 17. “Judge Cannone called everyone in a day early to decide the parameters of the Rule 17 hearing and in the process declined to order an evidentiary hearing that Rule 17 does not provide for,” Traub said.

Regarding an earlier defense motion seeking the production of town of Canton records concerning the Albert family’s former dog, Traub said Judge Cannone has allowed that motion and he believes the requested records have been delivered to the court. Read’s attorneys believe the records could be crucial to the case in light of wounds observed on O’Keefe’s arm that their experts concluded “to a scientific certainty” were caused by scratches/bites from an animal. Jackson, in a previous court hearing, had cited testimony from Albert to investigators in which he stated that the dog was at the home on the night in question, was inside the house, and was “not great with strangers.”

In comments to reporters, Jackson said the evidence in the case, when taken as a whole, points to his client’s innocence and suggests that others may be guilty.

Read herself added, “It feels that we are the only ones fighting for the truth of what happened to John O’Keefe, and me and my family and my attorneys and my team have marshaled every resource to get to the truth. It just feels that no one else wants it.”

Judge Cannone set the next pretrial hearing in the case against Read for July 25 at 2 p.m.

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