Karen Read adds alternate juror from her first trial to defense team

Flint McColgan, Boston Herald on Mar 26, 2025

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BOSTON — An alternate juror from Karen Read’s first trial has joined the defense team just ahead of the retrial, which is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Victoria George was added to the defense team on Wednesday according to court records. George identified herself as an alternate juror earlier this month in an interview with Boston’s CBS news. Alternate jurors do not participate in deliberations and are there to step in if one of the selected jurors can no longer participate.

“There have been so many unprecedented things in this case and this is just one of them,” former state Superior Court judge Jack Lu told the Herald of the development.

George is listed on the state Board of Bar Overseers database as being admitted to the state bar in 2021 and a current member of the Yannetti Criminal Defense Law Firm. David Yannetti, the principal of that firm, has represented Read since the beginning of her case.

Read, 45, is accused of striking John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years and a 16-year Boston Police officer, with her car and leaving him to die in a major snowstorm on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. She was tried last year but that ended in mistrial after the jury reported an impasse.

Lu said that the primary reason he can see that the defense team would want to hire George is for her insights into how the first trial was presented to the jury and whatever insight she could provide in how the team could do better.

As far as Lu can see, there is no legal problem to hiring a former juror to the defense team, as she, like all jurors, was not privy to “secret information,” but that is up to Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone to decide.

“Unlike the prosecutor, the defense lawyers are required to zealously advocate for their clients by the ethical rules,” Lu said. “This has real-world implications in terms of tactics.”

Lu said that the prosecution would “naturally” want to ensure that George’s status as a former member of the Read jury not be disclosed in the second trial.

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