THE attorneys of murder suspect Karen Read claim they have evidence proving their defense of a cover-up.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, and has been charged with second-degree murder.
4
4
4
According to police, Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe after dropping him off at a house party in Canton, Massachusetts in January 2022.
Prosecutors claim the 42-year-old left him to die during a snowstorm, and that the couple had gotten into an argument earlier that day.
It is claimed by the prosecution that O’Keefe had previously told Read that their relationship had run its course.
However, Read and her attorneys have denied all allegations against her, claiming that she was not involved and is being framed in a cover-up.
The defense argues that Read’s boyfriend was beaten inside the home of Boston police officer Brian Albert and was then dumped outside in the snow, per CBS News.
Read is set to go on trial next month after originally being scheduled for last week.
However, it was delayed after prosecutors were given over 3,000 pages of evidence from the US Attorney’s Office.
‘DISTORTION OF FACTS’
At the hearing on Tuesday, Read’s attorney Alan Jackson argued for the dismissal of the charges against his client claiming that there is evidence the police investigating the case “distorted” evidence.
In this claim, he named several police investigators involved in the case including Canton Police Sgt. Michael Lank and Massachusett’s State Police Trooper Michael Proctor.
According to Jackson, both men had relationships with witnesses involved in the case which were not disclosed to grand jurors.
“That conflict was never described to the grand jury and we’ve been rebuffed at every single turn,” he argued at the hearing.
In addition to this, the attorney referenced text messages between Proctor and a family member about having his toddler looked after by a relative of one of the witnesses in the Read case.
He then cited another text message from Proctor’s sister to the trooper, claiming a member of that same family said, ” When all this is over, she wants to give you a thank you gift.”
However, he then described what he called “the most obvious distortion of facts” where prosecutors allegedly concealed the fact that one of the witnesses had made a suspicious internet search.
The unidentified witness allegedly Google searched “ho[w] long to die in cold” at 2:27 am on the night O’Keefe died, according to Jackson.
“Any one of these examples would be enough to dismiss the charges as they sit here today, but the cumulative effect of this deception is too much for the court to ignore,” Jackson said in his argument to dismiss the charges.
“This was a cover-up…John was murdered inside that house. His body was placed outside,” Jackson told ABC News.
He argued that evidence used against his client such as fragments of Read’s broken taillight were “planted after the fact.”
Meanwhile, Canton police reports claim that more evidence was recovered from the scene after the snow melted away, per ABC News.
The allegations of withholding evidence or lying about the facts have been strongly denied by prosecutors.
“The defense is trying to say, ‘Look the other way,'” Prosecutor Adam Lally said in court on March 12, noting that Read’s lawyers are trying to distract from the evidence against her.
“There was no conspiracy or coverup. Such claims have been systematically refuted by evidence submitted to Norfolk Superior Court,” the prosecution told ABC News.
SECOND DISMISSAL
Meanwhile, defense lawyer David Yannetti also filed a motion for the dismissal of Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey from prosecuting the case due to a video from August 2023.
It allegedly shows Morrissey condemning the harassment of witnesses in the case.
“DA Morrissey has an interest in this case not to do justice, but to win,” Yannetti said.
“My client deserves a neutral, impartial prosecutor. Morrissey isn’t that. That is why he should be disqualified.”
Judge Beverly Cannone has not yet ruled on the motions.
4
Credit Gist New Today News in Newspaper Nigeria Headlines
