Karen Read retrial: Prosecutor’s ‘mistake’ leads to another call for mistrial

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Karen Read’s second murder trial entered its seventh week on Monday with the two sides haggling over what further testimony jurors might hear and the defense failing to persuade the judge to declare a mistrial.

Read, 45, is accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston police Officer John O’Keefe, with her car outside of a suburban house party in January 2022 and leaving him to die in the snow. She’s charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene.

Her lawyers allege that O’Keefe, 46, was beaten inside the Canton home, which belonged to a fellow officer, and was bitten by a dog and then left outside as part of a conspiracy by the police that included planting evidence against Read.

Read’s first trial ended in a mistrial last year and her second has so far followed similar contours to the first.

Prosecutor’s ‘mistake’ leads to another call for mistrial

Read attorney Robert Alessi accused the prosecution of “intentional misconduct” on Monday while cross-examining a crash reconstruction analyst.

The defence had brought in Daniel Wolfe, who works for the accident reconstruction firm ARCCA, to discuss the numerous tests he and others conducted with a dummy arm striking a replica of Read’s SUV taillight at various speeds.

Near the end of the cross-examination, prosecutor Hank Brennan asked Wolfe about the holes in O’Keefe’s sweatshirt by holding up a glass casing with the hoodie inside it and asked if they could have been caused by road rash.

Alessi accused the prosecution of purposefully misleading the jury by not disclosing that the back of the hoodie had certain holes due to a criminalist cutting into the sweatshirt as part of the O’Keefe investigation.

“I don’t believe one could come up with more misleading, misdirecting elucidation of testimony than this, on the key issue in the case,” Alessi said.

Brennan said he “made a mistake” when showing the jury the hoodie but asked the judge to clarify for the jurors that the holes were cut rather than declare a mistrial.

Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone agreed, telling the jury that they couldn’t draw “any inference” that holes came from the incident on night of O’Keefe’s death.

The defence has called for mistrial several times since the second trial started nearly seven weeks ago. The call for a mistrial came as the defense and prosecution butted heads over what testimony could be allowed to be heard in front of the jury, leading Cannone to urge both sides to move quickly.

Crash expert says damage to SUV, clothing are inconsistent with collision

Daniel Wolfe’s questioning by the defence began Friday. Wolfe initially was hired by the federal government as part of an investigation into how law enforcement handled O’Keefe’s death. He testified at Read’s first trial and has since been paid by the defence.

Wolfe described conducting numerous tests, including striking a dummy arm with a replica of Read’s SUV taillight at various speeds. He also had an SUV back into both an arm suspended in the air and a full-body dummy wearing clothing that matched what O’Keefe was wearing.

A prosecution expert testified that O’Keefe’s injuries were consistent with having been struck by a vehicle. But Wolfe said based on every test he performed, the damage to Read’s taillight and O’Keefe’s clothing was inconsistent with striking an arm or body.

Wolfe acknowledged that the test dummy arm he used for some of the tests weighed more than 2 pounds (0.9 kilogram) less than O’Keefe’s arm likely weighed based on his height and weight. But he denied that it made a difference in his conclusions and noted that the actual weight of O’Keefe’s arm was not known.