Prosecutor in Karen Read case confirms federal investigation is over, asks for gag order for defense

DEDHAM, Mass. — The federal investigation into the Karen Read murder case is over, special prosecutor Hank Brennan announced during a Tuesday pretrial hearing, confirming what 25 Investigates first reported last week.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, is accused of hitting John O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022, and leaving him to die in a snowstorm after a night of drinking. The defense has sought to portray Read as the victim, saying O’Keefe was actually killed inside the Albert family home and dragged outside.

“The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office was contacted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Let me make crystal clear, they made clear that I could inform the court there is no longer any federal investigation into the investigation of John O’Keefe’s death or any related matters,” Brennan said. “It is closed, it is over.”

Boston 25′s Ted Daniel was the first to break the news on the federal probe coming to an end, noting that no charges would be filed.

Canton Police Chief Canton Police Chief Helena Rafferty released a statement following Brennan’s announcement, writing, “I recently spoke to and was informed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, that ALL ASPECTS of the federal investigation, initiated by her predecessor and related to the death of John O’Keefe, have been completed. The investigation is no longer active and will be closed. Due to ethical limitations, I cannot comment further.”

As 25 Investigates reported in December 2023, the federal probe was run by the U.S. Attorney’s Public Corruption Unit and agents from the Boston FBI office assisted with it.

It was focused on widely publicized allegations that Read was framed for O’Keefe’s death by law enforcement and those she and O’Keefe had been drinking with in the hours before O’Keefe was found unresponsive outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton on the morning of January 29, 2022.

Multiple people were questioned before a federal grand jury, including the state police detectives who arrested Read, along with witnesses for the prosecution.

The federal government provided 3,074 pages of documents from their investigation of Read’s case before her trial last April in Dedham’s Norfolk Superior Court. The documents included Trooper Michael Proctor’s offensive text messages about Read, grand jury testimony from prosecution witness Brian Higgins about the destruction of his cell phone, and findings from ARCCA, an engineering consulting firm that concluded that O’Keefe’s injuries did not appear to come from a vehicle strike.

Read is charged with second-degree murder and other charges. The Norfolk DA’s office alleges she struck O’Keefe with her SUV while driving in reverse.

The conclusion of the federal probe comes one month after new U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley was appointed to replace Josh Levy, who resigned on Jan. 17, 2025.

After informing the court of the closure of the federal investigation, Brennan requested that a gag order be imposed on all of Karen Read’s attorneys, saying that their “ongoing, deliberate, purposeful poisoning of the potential jury pool” needs to come to an end.

“The Commonwealth asks the court to consider sanctions so that we can have a fair trial. What I suggest is that from now until trial, all pleadings submitted by the defense should be under seal,” Brennan said. “No more symposiums on the courthouse stairs, no more interviews with national media, no more statements to press privately behind the scenes over a coffee and putting out information, often times inaccurate, to sell the story before the trial starts so we can have a trial based on fact.”

Brennan added, “There should be a gag order on all of these attorneys...And the Commonwealth will not speak either...In light of the inability for the defense to restrain themselves, in light of their purposeful, intentional, and obvious efforts, in order to best try to maintain a fair jury in this case, is to impose those sanctions.”

Federal investigation into Karen Read murder case is over, special prosecutor confirms in court

Brennan’s gag order request comes after the defense filed a 147-page motion to dismiss the case against Read based on the “basis of extraordinary governmental misconduct,” accusing the Commonwealth of “destroying exculpatory evidence, withholding exculpatory evidence, and interfering with the jury.”

It also comes after Read, sitting alongside attorney Alan Jackson, told Boston 25′s Ted Daniel that she has “nothing to hide” and that she’s “been framed” for murder in an exclusive one-on-one interview.

When the case was last in court last week, one of Read’s attorneys, Robert Alessi, responded in court after special prosecutor Hank Brennan accused the defense of essentially lying about dealings that they had with ARCCA crash reconstruction experts.

Alessi told the court that there was nothing shady about their interactions with accident reconstruction specialist Dr. Daniel Wolfe and biomechanical engineering specialist Dr. Andrew Rentschler, accusing Brennan of misleading Cannone.

Wolfe and Rentschler both testified on behalf of Read in June 2024 and stated that injuries to Read’s Boston police officer boyfriend weren’t consistent with a vehicle strike.

Brennan has alleged that the defense hid communications with ARCCA and a more than $23,000 payment they allegedly made to the engineering consulting firm initially hired by federal authorities to look into Read’s case.

Alessi confirmed that Read’s legal team did pay for the ARCCA testimony and Brennan maintained that the information should have been shared publicly.

“Of course, any attorney, unless they want to risk malpractice, is going to make a communication with that expert, which was perfectly legal,” Alessi argued.

Brennan responded, “It is the bias, the relationship that is critical, and that was hidden from the court.”

Cannon ended the hearing without deciding if the defense would face any consequences, however, she previously suggested that this could “have profound effects” on the future of the case.

In new court filings Monday, Read’s defense sought to clarify statements made in documents for the previous hearing, specifically a motion that states the ARCCA crash experts “were not hired or paid by the defense.”

The Karen Read case will shift to federal court on Wednesday as the defense seeks to get her charges dropped based on the double jeopardy argument involving jurors from her first trial who reported that she was acquitted.

Cannone declared a mistrial in July 2024 after finding jurors couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on all three charges. Last month, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts denied Read’s bid to dismiss her charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a deadly crash for double jeopardy reasons.

Read’s attorneys had argued that their client’s double jeopardy protections were violated because several jurors who came forward after the mistrial indicated that Read was found not guilty of the two charges in question. Cannone later rejected a motion to dismiss the charges, prompting the SJC appeal.

After the SJC’s denial, the Read legal team said it would consider their legal options, including federal habeas corpus relief.

Both the defense and prosecution are slated to return to Dedham’s Norfolk Superior Court on Wednesday for additional proceedings after the federal hearing wraps.

The retrial of Read is slated for April 2025.

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