Karen Read is fighting to have murder charge tossed ahead of retrial, alleging ‘extraordinary’ misconduct

Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman who said she was framed in a far-reaching law enforcement conspiracy after authorities accused her of fatally running over her police officer boyfriend, is scheduled to return to court for a retrial next month on charges of second-degree murder and other crimes.

But her lawyers have been busy in the lead-up trying to get most — if not all — of the widely watched case thrown out.

In back-to-back hearings Wednesday, her lawyers claimed in state court that she was the victim of “extraordinary governmental misconduct,” while in federal court they argued that retrying two of the charges, including murder, amounts to double jeopardy.

A separate investigation into alleged misconduct by the state police trooper who led the investigation into the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe is ongoing.

In addition to second-degree murder, Read was charged with motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision causing death after prosecutors said she backed her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe on Jan. 29, 2022, and left him for dead outside the home of a then-Boston police sergeant.

During a nine-week trial last summer that concluded with the judge declaring a mistrial, Read’s defense team alleged that the sergeant and others were likely responsible for the death and conspired to frame Read in O’Keefe’s killing.

In a partially redacted filing unsealed last week in Norfolk County Superior Court, lawyers for Read asked for all charges to be dismissed. Read was “severely prejudiced” after authorities appeared to have altered or withheld security video that captured what the attorneys have described as a crucial piece of evidence — a tail light on Read’s SUV, according to the filing.

During Read’s trial, prosecutors alleged that the tail light shattered when she backed her vehicle into O’Keefe. The broken light contained O’Keefe’s DNA, prosecutors said.

But Read’s defense team has said the video, which was recorded at the police facility where the SUV was taken once in custody, shows the tail light was not damaged until it reached the facility in Canton, Mass.

During Wednesday’s state court hearing, defense attorney Alan Jackson described the alleged misconduct as a pattern that warranted dismissal, NBC Boston reported.

Special prosecutor Hank Brennan rejected those claims, saying there was “absolutely no evidence” of tampering. “It is unequivocally clear that piece of the tail light is missing well before that car ever gets to Canton,” he said, according to the station.

Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone, who presided over the first trial, did not rule on the matter from the bench.

In a separate hearing Wednesday, Read’s lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss the murder charge and a second allegation, leaving the scene of a collision causing death, over what they described as a “mistake” made by Cannone after the mistrial was declared.

The defense sought to have the charges thrown out after they say two jurors told the attorneys that the panel would have acquitted Read of the crimes. Cannone denied the request, saying they’d never reached a verdict in open court.

But Cannone never polled the jury to determine if they had come to a decision on any of the allegations, one of Read’s attorneys said Wednesday. Nor did the defense have a chance to question jurors in an effort to ensure fairness and impartiality, NBC Boston reported.

An assistant district attorney responded that such a fact-finding process could compromise the jury, and nothing in the state’s constitution required Cannone to have taken the steps described by the defense.

The judge overseeing the matter said he would take the matter under advisement, according to NBC Boston.

Read’s retrial is scheduled to begin April 1.