Karen Read sues witnesses she argues framed her for John O'Keefe's murder

BOSTON — Karen Read has sued witnesses from her murder case who she argues framed her for the killing of John O’Keefe and are “actually involved” in her Boston police officer boyfriend’s death.

Read and her defense team have filed a civil complaint in Bristol Superior Court against witnesses they point to as “third parties” for O’Keefe’s death and members of the Massachusetts State Police involved in the murder investigation.

The complaint comes months after a jury in Norfolk County acquitted Read of the Boston cop’s murder.

“For three and a half years,” the complaint states, “Plaintiff Karen Read was wrongly accused of homicide and subjected to suspicion, arrest, two prosecutions, and public condemnation, all resulting from the gross misconduct of the Massachusetts State Police – and those working in tandem with the MSP – to shield from liability the party or parties responsible for the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe III.”

“Now, after being acquitted of all charges relating to Mr. O’Keefe’s death,” the complaint continues, “Ms. Read brings this action to recover for and address the actions of those actually involved in Mr. O’Keefe’s death and the law enforcement officers who abjectly failed to ensure that justice was sought and served in the aftermath of January 29, 2022.”

Read’s attorneys, Damon Seligson and Alan Jackson, reiterate an argument presented in Read’s two criminal trials: That other parties inside Brian and Nicole Albert’s home, at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, killed O’Keefe.

The complaint targets Brian and Nicole Albert, Matthew and Jennifer McCabe and Brian Higgins as being involved in killing O’Keefe.

Michael Proctor, the lead MSP investigator in O’Keefe’s murder, who has since been fired and given up on an appeal to regain his job, MSP Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik and MSP Lt. Brian Tully are also being sued in the complaint.

The defense argues the MSP investigators “allowed the House Defendants to direct the investigation away from themselves, and towards Ms. Read.”

Bukhenik and Tully have also been disciplined for their behavior in the investigation.

Also developing Tuesday, attorneys for Brian and Nicole Albert, Matthew and Jennifer McCabe, and Brian Higgins vowed to pursue defamatory claims against Read and Aidan Kearney, an independent journalist known as “Turtleboy,” who has covered the case extensively.

Kearney, 43, of Holden, faces multiple charges of witness intimidation and picketing jurors or court officers related to his activism in support of Read. Two counts of witness intimidation, three counts of conspiracy, and a count of picketing were previously dismissed after he was indicted in December 2023.

“As reported yesterday,” the attorneys for the so-called “house defendants” wrote, “we will hold Ms. Read accountable for the harm she has inflicted and the conspiracy she and Aidan Kearney, also known as Turtleboy, have manufactured.”

Read, 45, was indicted in June 2022 on charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing O’Keefe’s death.

She was tried twice, first in 2024, which ended in a mistrial, and then in a second trial, which ended this past June when a jury acquitted her on all the indicted charges. She was convicted of drunk driving.

Prosecutors accused Read of backing up into O’Keefe, her Boston Police officer boyfriend of two years, with her SUV, leaving him to freeze and die on the front yard of the Canton home then-owned by Brian Albert, a Boston Police colleague.

Read’s defense argues that O’Keefe was beaten to death inside the home, with parties then dragging his body outside to the front yard, making it appear he was hit by a vehicle during the blizzard that early morning in late January 2022.

The argument is also the same as the one that Read’s defense has covered in the wrongful death civil suit that the O’Keefe family has filed against her in Plymouth Superior Court. Her attorneys pointed to the “third parties” in court documents last month.

A hearing in the wrongful death civil suit is scheduled for Friday in Plymouth.

“Karen Read did not kill her then-boyfriend, Mr. O’Keefe,” the freshly filed civil complaint states. “The House Defendants responsible for Mr. O’Keefe’s death – some of whom had professional experience with police investigations – concocted a plan immediately after the altercation to avoid culpability and to frame Karen Read.”

Through their attorneys, the house defendants are fighting back against Read’s allegations, describing them as “entirely false, defamatory, and without merit.”

“Our clients categorically deny each and every claim,” the attorneys said in a joint statement on Tuesday. “This lawsuit is nothing more than a continuation of a baseless conspiracy narrative that has caused significant harm to the reputations and lives of innocent people.”

Jackson, who has been part of Read’s defense since September 2022, called the fresh civil complaint a “meticulously documented civil action grounded in evidence, law, and the Constitution.”

“What we will not do is legitimize a threat to file some imaginary ‘defamation’ case,” Jackson said in a statement on Tuesday. “That threat is nothing more than a desperate attempt by these defendants to distract the public from the very real legal jeopardy they now face. When people start waving around defamation claims to mask their own legal troubles, it tells you everything you need to know—they don’t want sunlight, they want silence.

A footnote in the 46-page complaint adds that the Massachusetts State Police will be added as a defendant for “negligent training, supervision, and retention of MSP troopers, including Proctor, Bukhenik, and Tully” after “presentment.”

The Town of Canton will also be added for “negligent oversight of the investigation into Mr. O’Keefe’s death and of its own officers and facilities,” according to the complaint.

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