Key figures in Karen Read‘s civil case will sit for depositions over the next few months, attorneys said during the latest hearing in the legal saga Thursday.
Read is due to be deposed Tuesday, her lawyer said at the latest virtual hearing in Plymouth Superior Court in a wrongful death suit brought against Read by the family of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe, who died in 2022.
Read was charged with killing O’Keefe, but was acquitted at her retrial last year.
Massachusetts State Police Lt. Sgt. Brian Tully, who oversaw the investigation into O’Keefe’s death, is due to be deposed next month, Read lawyer Aaron Rosenberg said, pointing out the hearing is expected to take a long time and could conflict with a planned afternoon hearing before Judge Mark Gildea.
“Five hours is a long time. I hope you can get it done,” Gildea said.
It’s one of more than a dozen depositions — sworn testimony given out of court that’s used as evidence in trials — scheduled into the summer. No lawyer at Thursday’s hearing said they’d already conducted a deposition so far.
“I guess you all just decided to ruin your own summers,” Gildea joked.
Subpoenas for information have been hitting roadblocks, according to the attorneys. O’Keefe family attorney Marc Diller said the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office hasn’t produced documents his team requested in connection with influential Read supporter and blogger Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney’s own legal proceedings.
And on Wednesday, attorneys for Read filed a motion to have the court compel Canton to produce documents tied to its investigation into Canton Police Sgt. Sean Goode — which the town opposed, arguing in court that the subpoena is unreasonably broad.
Lawyers for O’Keefe’s family have said that Read caused them emotional distress by fabricating her own “conspiracy” about the events leading up to his 2022 death, launching “a public campaign of disinformation” and using crime bloggers to pit her massive following against them. Read’s case garnered considerable news and social media coverage, and crowds of supporters descended on the courthouse during the trial with “Free Karen Read” signs.
Meanwhile, Read’s lawyers have argued that O’Keefe’s parents, brother and a niece he was raising after his sister and brother-in-law’s deaths don’t have standing to pursue emotional distress damages because they didn’t witness O’Keefe’s death or see his body until after he had been declared dead at the hospital.
The last hearing in the wrongful death suit against Read was held in March, where attorneys argued over if and when Read would get her cellphones back. The O’Keefe family has claimed there is incriminating evidence on them, while Read’s attorneys disagree.
That hearing lasted only a few minutes, with attorneys for Read and the O’Keefe’s saying they had reached a general agreement on when Read would get her cellphones back.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson said there is still no understanding on when Karen Read will get her cellphones back from the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office.
The judge in the case also ruled last week that an email Read mistakenly sent to lawyers for O’Keefe’s family must be deleted.
Read has also filed her own federal defamation suit against a group of people she says framed her, and there has been some discussion about whether evidence sharing in both lawsuits should be consolidated.
Her suit names former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor in his personal capacity, Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik in his personal capacity, Lt. Sgt. Brian Tully in his personal capacity, Brian and Nicole Albert, Jennifer and Matthew McCabe, and Brian Higgins as defendants.
The lawsuit alleges gross misconduct on the part of Massachusetts State Police and “those working in tandem” with them, saying that the agency failed to ensure justice in O’Keefe’s death. Much of the information contained in her suit is a rehash of information her legal team presented in her criminal cases and in media interviews.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
