A look at the players in the Karen Read retrial

Flint McColgan, Boston Herald on Mar 31, 2025

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BOSTON — Here are the people you should know ahead of the Karen Read retrial starting with jury empanelment on Tuesday.

The victim: John O’Keefe was a 16-year Boston police officer when he died at 46 in the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022. He was “not only a dedicated police officer, he was an exemplary guardian, son, brother, uncle and friend and we were so fortunate to have him as a part of our lives,” stated a GoFundMe to support his niece and nephew financially after O’Keefe’s death. The reason for the drive was because O’Keefe took the children in when his older sister and her husband, Kristen and Stephen Furbush, both died in 2013 and 2014. O’Keefe’s mother, Peggy O’Keefe, and younger brother, Paul O’Keefe, are mainstays in the prosecution gallery of the courtroom.

The accused: Karen Read, 45, is accused of backing her Lexus LX570 SUV into O’Keefe, her boyfriend of nearly two years at the time, at perhaps 24 mph ahead of a major snowstorm and leaving him to freeze and die on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton. The Mansfield financial analyst and Bentley College lecturer was first charged in Stoughton District Court on Feb. 2, 2022, just days after O’Keefe’s death. She was indicted for O’Keefe’s murder that June. She has pleaded not guilty and has been out on bail the full time. Her parents, William and Janet Read and brother Nathan Read attend every hearing.

The defense

Boston attorney David Yannetti has represented Read from the beginning and remains at the defense table. Read hired Los Angeles attorneys Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little, famous for defending Kevin Spacey in Nantucket, to the team in September 2022.

The defense team has expanded even further after the first trial. It added Boston attorney Martin Weinberg, usually a federal court specialist, as “limited appearance counsel” for Read a week after the mistrial to argue the dismissal motions and federal appeals. Read then added New York City-based Robert Alessi to the team last November and he has already been a regular motions arguer in pre-trial hearings and Yannetti says will “be with us for the re-trial, from start-to-finish.” Finally, on Wednesday, the team added attorney Victoria George, a controversial pick as she was an alternate juror in the last Read trial.

The prosecution

The two prosecutors from the first trial, Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin, are still part of the team for the retrial but there is a new leader on the prosecution team: longtime defense lawyer Hank Brennan. He famously defended infamous Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger in his 2013 federal criminal case after which Bulger was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey, who is himself listed on the defense witness list because they accuse him of meddling in the case by issuing a public statement decrying their theory, appointed Brennan as special prosecutor last September.

Finally, Caleb Schillinger represented the prosecution during the defense’s appeals to the Supreme Judicial Court and the federal courts.

The judge: Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly J. Cannone is returning for round two. The Quincy native and longtime public defender was first appointed as a Quincy District Court judge in 2009 and was appointed to the Superior Court by by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2014.

Third-partiers: The defense has mounted what is called a “third party culprit” defense, at least in practice. Yannetti has named three people as possible alternative culprits: Brian Albert, a BPD sergeant who owned the property that was the site of O’Keefe’s death; Brian Higgins, an ATF agent and Albert’s friend who was there that night and has romantic interest in Read; and Colin Albert, Brian Albert’s nephew, who the defense argues had beef with O’Keefe. The theory hinges largely on another person they say is involved in the conspiracy: Jennifer McCabe, who made a web search for “hos long to die in cold” at a hotly contested time.

The blogger: Holden-based Aidan Kearney blogs, produces videos and runs a social media empire under the “Turtleboy” brand that since the defense first unveiled their theory has become a hotbed of zealously pro-Read content. He serves as the de facto leader of the “Free Karen Read” movement and is indicted himself on more than a dozen counts of witness intimidation in the Read case. Kearney covers the trial and his followers will likely be seen — wearing Read-support pink — just outside the “buffer zone” around the courthouse.

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