Karen Read’s attorneys will get an extra 10 days to file what they promise will be a “pretty full-throated” motion to toss their client’s cop-killer case, building on a blockbuster claim of “extraordinary” government misconduct in the case.
Read’s attorneys hinted at their latest motion to dismiss in a footnote to a motion filed last month, asking that the state pay Read’s costs to send an expert to collect Canton Police Department building footage from around the time of their initial investigation into John O’Keefe’s death and Read’s arrest for his murder.
“A Motion to Dismiss for Extraordinary Governmental Misconduct based on the destruction of this, and other, exculpatory evidence is forthcoming,” the footnote reads.
During a Thursday motions hearing, Read defense attorney Alan Jackson requested more time than the Feb. 11 deadline Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly J. Cannone gave him to file what he promised would be a “pretty full-throated” motion to dismiss that will require much prep time from him and his team.
He asked for early March, and Cannone met him in the middle with a new deadline of February 21. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan and his team will have a week to respond and the sides will then argue in court on March 4.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. A trial last year ended in mistrial and she is scheduled for a second trial on April 1.
Prosecutors say that she struck O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer who she had dated for roughly two years, with her Lexus SUV after a night of heavy drinking and left him to freeze and die on a Canton front yard in the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
Read’s defense attorneys have countered throughout the case that Read has been framed by corrupt and incompetent local and state cops and prosecutors working with the owner of the home whose lawn O’Keefe was found. That homeowner is Brian Albert, a now-retired Boston Police sergeant who was hosting an afterparty Read and O’Keefe had been invited to. Defense attorneys say that O’Keefe made it into the home that night and was beaten to death inside.
To support their theory, defense attorneys have been requesting the preservation of everything from the cops — starting as far back as Read’s first appearance in court on Feb. 2, 2022, when she was arraigned ahead of indictment in Stoughton District Court, according to defense attorneys Jackson and David Yannetti.
The majority of Thursday’s roughly hour long motions hearing was devoted to the request in which the motion to dismiss was hinted at: the defense request that the state reimburse Read for sending an expert to pick up Canton PD surveillance footage that turned out to not exist.
The sides were far apart.
Jackson argued that Brennan and the Commonwealth sent the expert and the defense team on a “wild goose chase” that ended up costing Read more than $12,000.
Brennan argued that he had made no promises as to whether the video footage existed and had even expressed his concerns that it didn’t, but “in the spirit of transparency,” agreed that Read’s expert could go to the station to get whatever is available.
“I was not trying to lure them back to Canton or have them spend money. I was trying to, as I always do, be as transparent as I could and as helpful as I could,” Brennan said. He said that he “extended the courtesy.”
Jackson countered that the court shouldn’t “conflate courtesy with an obligation,” and argued that the video evidence was exculpatory and the state was required to share such information and content with the defense.
Cannone did not rule on the motion during the hearing.
This is a developing story.