Court video: Highly-anticipated hearing held in Karen Read murder case

DEDHAM, Mass. — The Karen Read murder case was back in Dedham’s Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday after a flurry of new documents were filed ahead of the highly-anticipated hearing.

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

Brennan also requested that a gag order be imposed on the defense team.

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Read’s defense team is facing allegations of misconduct, accused by prosecutors of improperly working with and paying federal crash reconstruction experts for their testimony in Read’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury. Defense attorneys maintain they have done nothing wrong and have not hidden their contact with experts, as prosecutors allege.

Judge Beverly Cannone said she had “grave concerns” about the allegations two weeks ago. She heard rebuttal from Read’s defense team the following week and could decide Tuesday if Read’s attorneys acted improperly.

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 statement…. was poorly worded and should have reflected, more specifically, that the defense did not hire, retain, or pay ARCCA, LLC, to engage in the reconstruction, analysis, and/or testing that was performed by ARCCA in connection with this case,” defense attorney Elizabeth Little wrote in an affidavit.

In a corresponding filing, Read’s defense admits to paying ARCCA experts for their time and expenses after trial. According to the document, the payments included:

• Travel expenses and time associated with traveling to Norfolk Superior Court
• Less than 1 hour in calls with the defense to coordinate attendance and discuss the experts’ background
• Time spent testifying in court and the experts’ internal preparation for trial

Last week, defense attorney Robert Alessi told Judge Cannone that Read’s team of lawyers had done nothing wrong.

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

In another filing, an expert for Read’s defense is asking a judge to reconsider a request to preserve “forensically sound” video evidence.

IT forensic analyst Matthew Erickson claims the state “may have additional video surveillance footage from January 29, 2022, that is being stored on… the Canton Police Department’s Video File System.”

Erickson says it is “imperative that this additional source of information be preserved and dealt with in a forensically sound manner, as it may serve as another source of information related to the authenticity and integrity of the video surveillance at issue in this case.”

Read’s defense alleges investigators may have deleted evidence and manipulated videos related to the investigation to frame Read.

Prosecutors also filed a “Notice of Discovery,” outlining more than a dozen files, emails, and other evidence they’ve turned over to Read’s defense team for review.

Cannone ended last week’s 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.

The latest scheduled hearing also comes after Read’s attorneys filed a fresh 147-page motion to dismiss the case against their client, on the “basis of extraordinary governmental misconduct.” In the filing, the defense accuses the Commonwealth of “destroying exculpatory evidence, withholding exculpatory evidence, and interfering with the jury.”

Prosecutors fired back in a 15-page opposition to Read’s motion, arguing that it “should be denied” because the “defense’s claims do not raise any substantial issues.”

Read is accused of hitting her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV on Jan. 29, 2022, and leaving him to die 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 then dragged outside and left for dead.

The retrial of Read has been delayed until April 2025. Cannone declared a mistrial in July 2024 after finding jurors couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on all three charges of second-degree murder, leaving the scene of a crash, and manslaughter.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview on Super Bowl Sunday, Read told Boston 25′s Ted Daniel that she has “nothing to hide” and that she’s “been framed” for murder.

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