Karen Read claims murder charge in police officer boyfriend’s death is double jeopardy

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A Massachusetts woman is asking the state’s highest court to throw out some of the charges against her after her murder trial for the death of her police officer boyfriend ended in a mistrial amid emerging allegations of a corrupt cover-up involving his own colleagues.

Karen Read, a 44-year-old former finance professional, was dating John O’Keefe, a 46-year-old Boston police officer found dead on another Boston police officer’s front lawn in Canton on the morning after a nor’easter in January 2022.

The criminal case against her ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked following 26 hours of deliberation, but now prosecutors plan to try her again early next year.

Prosecutors allege that she ran him over with her SUV during a drunken fight and then drove off, leaving him injured but alive until he froze to death.

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After the jury was dismissed for the day, Karen Read, right, listens as Canton Police Sergeant Michael Lank is questioned by defense attorney Alan Jackson. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

She appeared before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday to argue that two of the three charges in her first trial should be dropped under a constitutional ban on double jeopardy, because jurors had only deadlocked on the third.

“Today’s appeal goes to the core issues regarding double jeopardy protection that safeguard defendants, in this case Ms. Read, from the risk of reprosecution for the very same offenses for which a prior jury was discharged,” Read’s attorney, Martin Weinberg, told a panel of judges on the state’s highest court, according to The Associated Press.

Officer John O’Keefe poses for his official headshot. O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Reed, has been accused of murder after he was found dead outside a Massachusetts home in January 2022. (Boston Police Department)

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Weinberg said multiple jurors came forward after the mistrial to say that they had deadlocked on the manslaughter charge but believed Read was not guilty of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. 

However, they had not told the judge.

He asked to have the jurors brought in to testify on the matter. The panel did not announce a decision Wednesday.

Hundreds of Karen Read supporters gather in front of Norfolk County Superior Court before one of her appearances. (Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)

Read has maintained that she dropped O’Keefe off at Boston Police Officer Brian Albert’s house on a snowy night and went home after a night on the town with friends.

Early the next morning, realizing he had not come back, she went looking for him with friends. They found his body in the snow on Albert’s lawn.

The defense for Karen Read holds up a poster board containing information they claim exonerates their client in the murder of John O’Keefe. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

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Read has argued that she was framed by the real killers – whom she believes are other members of law enforcement who attacked O’Keefe inside Albert’s home and then threw him outside in the storm. None of those officers have been charged with a crime.

Karen Read arrives at Norfolk Superior Court for a hearing to dismiss murder charges against her. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The medical examiner found that O’Keefe died from blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.