Blogger pleads not guilty to witness intimidation
Charges linked to Karen Read case
The controversial blogger behind the Turtleboy website is facing witness intimidation and conspiracy charges related to his coverage of the high-profile murder case against Karen Read, who is accused of hitting her boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die outside a Canton home in 2022, officials said.
Aidan Kearney, 41, was arraigned in Stoughton District Court on Wednesday on multiple counts of witness intimidation and a conspiracy charge. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance.
Fall River attorney Kenneth Mello, the special prosecutor assigned to handle the case for the government, gave a lengthy recitation of the allegations in court, reading a number of messages he said Kearney sent investigators and witnesses to threaten and harass them.
Kearney, who boasts a wide following, has extensively covered Read’s prosecution on his website and has accused investigators of framing her, at times appearing on social media wearing a hoodie that says “Free Karen Read,” which he wore in court Wednesday.
Mello said Kearney had posted at least 164 articles on his website about what he called the “Canton Coverup” and multiple videos to YouTube in which he accused witnesses of participating in a crime. He also “doxxed” some of those witnesses, publicizing their home addresses and their work and private phone numbers and encouraging his audience to harass them, Mello said.
”This is not my last trip to Canton. I’ll be back,” Kearney allegedly said in one profanityladen video, adding later, “These people think I’m [expletive] around. They haven’t seen the last of me. Get used to it.”
In another video, Kearney allegedly addressed one of the witnesses directly, saying the witness could not avoid Kearney’s followers, Mello said.
”I got really bad news for you,” Kearney said, according to Mello. “They are literally everywhere. You guys should just stop going out in public. It’s only going to get worse from here. I know where you all were today. You were in Agawam, weren’t you? You guys were at some sort of Little League thing in Agawam.”
After his cellphone number was included in one of Kearney’s videos, a state trooper who investigated the Read case “received approximately a dozen text messages, phone calls, and voicemails” accusing him of being involved in a conspiracy and calling for his firing over the next 12 hours, Mello said. The trooper had to change his number. In another video, Kearney allegedly called the trooper’s wife, whose number appeared onscreen, and left her a voicemail.
Kearney also allegedly persuaded a civilian police dispatcher to illegally provide him with information from the Registry of Motor Vehicles about the trooper, his wife, and another witness in the case after seeing the witness’s vehicle outside the trooper’s home, according to Mello. Mello said the witness was visiting the trooper and his wife to commiserate about the harassment they were enduring from Read’s supporters.
”Please keep me private,” the dispatcher said in a private message to Kearney, according to Mello. “I don’t anticipate [expletive] up in life. I never want the wrath of you.”
The dispatcher, who works in Avon, was placed on paid administrative leave, officials said.
Kearney’s lawyer, Sean Joseph Reynolds, said during the hearing that his client’s opinions about the Read case are protected under the First Amendment.
“My client states that he is a news person who was using his First Amendment rights to cover a story,” Reynolds said. “He vehemently denies that he’s intimidating or harassing anyone.”
The day before he was arrested, Kearney sharply criticized Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey, whose office is prosecuting Read, and Canton police Chief Helena Rafferty, whose department joined the State Police in investigating the killing, for describing what he called “peaceful protests” as witness intimidation.
On July 22, Kearney organized a “Rolling Road Rally” in which demonstrators traveled in a convoy of vehicles to the homes of witnesses in the Read case, according to court records. Outside one home, Kearney allegedly said on a bullhorn that he wanted all the “neighbors to know, in case they don’t already know, the people that live right here ... they are cop killers,” court documents said.
Kearney’s coverage has turned the murder case into a cause célèbre, and in August Morrissey took the highly unusual step of releasing a video statement about the case, condemning what he described as the “absolutely baseless” harassment and vilification of witnesses.
“It should be an outrage to any decent person — and it needs to stop,” Morrissey said. ”Innuendo is not evidence. False narratives are not evidence.”
Read, 43, is accused of hitting Boston police Officer John O’Keefe with her car while drunk on Jan. 29, 2022, and leaving him unconscious in a snowbank during a blizzard. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving impaired, and leaving the scene of an accident causing personal injury and death.
Authorities allege that after arguing with O’Keefe, Read dropped him off at a Canton home owned by a fellow Boston police officer, made a threepoint turn to leave, and hit O’Keefe with her SUV.
Read’s lawyers have argued there is a coverup between local and State Police investigating the case and that O’Keefe was beaten in the basement of the home after he was dropped off there. They say the family dog, a German shepherd, attacked him and injured his right arm.