Karen Read case: John O'Keefe's family adds California-based wrongful death specialist to civil suit

Flint McColgan, Boston Herald on Oct 9, 2025

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BOSTON — The family of John O’Keefe has added a wrongful death specialist lawyer from California to represent them in their civil suit against Karen Read, who was acquitted earlier this year of his murder.

Bibianne Fell, who goes by Bibi, is a San Diego-based attorney who, according to her website, “primarily practices in the areas of catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death.” She has practiced law in California since December of 2004, according to the motion for admittance, and is in good standing of the state’s bar.

The O’Keefe family’s Massachusetts-based attorney Marc Diller submitted the request to allow the out-of-state attorney to join as co-counsel on Wednesday. Plymouth Superior Court Judge Daniel J. O’Shea on Thursday allowed the request, having found that “the petitioner has satisfied the necessary requirements for admission pro hac vice.”

Paul O’Keefe, the younger brother of John O’Keefe, and other members of the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in August of last year against Read and the two bars where the couple drank just ahead of his death on Jan. 29, 2022.

The lawsuit did not have much activity for a while as Judge William M. White Jr. paused it until after the criminal trial against Read had run its course.

Read, 45, of Mansfield, was indicted in June 2022 on charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of John O’Keefe, her boyfriend. She was tried twice, first in 2024 that ended in mistrial and then in a second trial earlier this year when she was acquitted on all the indicted charges but was convicted of drunken driving.

Two of Read’s three attorneys in the first trial were from out of state: Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little, both of Los Angeles. They were joined in the third trial by Robert Alessi of New York. Read was represented throughout by Massachusetts attorney David Yannetti.

Now that the criminal trial has concluded, the civil suit has resumed.

The suit alleges the same events as the criminal prosecutors: that Read and O’Keefe argued into the midnight hour of Jan. 29, 2022; that O’Keefe got out of Read’s vehicle at 34 Fairview Road in Canton; and that Read, “in a state of intoxication,” drove her SUV into O’Keefe, who then “suffered serious injury and died.”

A civil proceeding has a much lower bar for jurors or a judge to find in favor of the plaintiff. While criminal convictions require proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” civil cases need only a “preponderance of the evidence” — meaning more than 50% certainty — to find in the plaintiff’s favor.

The Herald reached out by email to attorney Fell for comment but received an automated out-of-office response.

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