Karen Read on Thursday sued the Massachusetts State Police and the town of Canton, alleging misconduct and negligence in the investigation that led to her prosecution in the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
Read said on "TODAY," "This was always our plan, that I had to save my own life first," and added, "I have to continue fighting for justice. The acquittal is deserved, but the wrongs have not been completely righted." Her attorneys argued in the lawsuit that "an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot" was at the heart of the investigations.
Read was acquitted last June of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death, and was convicted of a single charge of operating under the influence of liquor; her first trial ended with a hung jury.
Alan Jackson, one of Read’s lawyers, said, "The law speaks in dollars, but that’s not what the ultimate goal is here. What Karen wants, you cannot write on a check, which is exposure. Exposure of the corruption that is the DNA of the Massachusetts State Police and the Canton Police Department, which is evidenced by these two individuals and their text messages." Canton officials rejected "broad stroke characterizations" about their officers, and Col. Geoffrey Noble of the Massachusetts State Police described derogatory text messages cited in the suit as "entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency and certainly with the expectations of a Massachusetts State Trooper. These racist, sexist and abhorrent comments absolutely do not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within our ranks."
O’Keefe, 46, was found dead outside the suburban home of another Boston police officer on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022; the medical examiner listed blunt force trauma to the head as the cause of death and hypothermia as a contributing factor.
Prosecutors alleged Read reversed her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe and left him for dead; there was no video of the alleged collision and no witnesses who said they saw it, but prosecutors presented vehicle data and expert testimony. Read’s attorneys blamed others, including Brian Albert, a now-retired police sergeant who was helping host the gathering at his Canton home, and said she was the victim of a corrupt, biased investigation; after she was acquitted, Read filed a lawsuit accusing Albert and others of covering up O’Keefe’s death, and attorneys for Albert and others filed a defamation suit in April. The two lawsuits continue.
Text messages shown at trial indicated former state trooper Michael Proctor made derogatory comments about Read and shared investigative details with non-law enforcement people, including a relative close to the Alberts; Proctor testified at the first trial, acknowledged saying "unprofessional" things about Read but denied leading a biased investigation, was dishonorably discharged after those proceedings and was not called to testify during the second trial. Read said she has not returned to work since the trials and has focused her attention on the case, and added, "He’s not lost; he’s the reason we are doing this."