DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - The prosecution in the Karen Read case is pushing back against the defense’s motion to dismiss the case.
Prosecutors are getting their turn after the defense team filed a long document — released Thursday — explaining why they think Judge Beverly Cannone should toss Read’s retrial before it begins.
The Commonwealth filed a 15-page document expressing its opposition to the defense’s motion to dismiss due to “extraordinary governmental misconduct.” Like the defense’s motion, the prosecution’s court filing contains some redactions due to a federal protective order.
Some of the evidence in this case came from an FBI investigation of law enforcement, which, according to 7News sources, has been dropped.
Karen Read, 45, faces three charges, including second-degree murder, in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe. Read claims she has been framed by police.
O’Keefe was found dead in the snow in Canton after a night of heavy drinking. Police claim Read backed into him with her SUV and left him to die in the snow.
The defense claims an inverted video is a key reason why the judge should call an end to the trial. It shows Read’s SUV in a sally port at the Canton Police Department after O’Keefe’s death.
It is an inverted image, meaning it is a mirror of how the scene looked in real life. Prosecutors said the video was flipped when the Commonwealth received it because the sally port camera was set to record video inverted.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan also noted some of the video was very poor quality and that cameras at the police station have since been replaced. He said that while some new video was recently discovered, even after the first trial, and was turned over last month, the quality of the video is bad, making it difficult for either video to be used by either party.
Brennan said the video depicts the same events as in other videos, but from different camera angles.
Brennan told the court in his response that “…dismissal would be inappropriate as there is no evidence of egregious misconduct on the part of the Commonwealth.”
The state also said the defense has a “perpetually evolving theory of the case.”
Oral arguments on the filings are scheduled to begin Tuesday, but the defense has asked to delay them until the week of March 17.
Read the prosecution’s opposition to the motion to dismiss here.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)