Blogger allowed at Read court proceedings
But must avoid all witnesses, judge rules
A Norfolk Superior Court judge on Thursday upheld an order compelling Aidan Kearney, the blogger known as Turtleboy, charged with intimidating witnesses in the Karen Read case, to stay away from those witnesses but allowed him to attend her court proceedings so he can keep covering the high-profile murder case.
In a 22-page ruling, Judge Peter B. Krupp wrote that Kearney, 41, “has a journalistic interest in reporting on the Read case,” and that court officers can maintain order if Kearney and the witnesses he is accused of intimidating and harassing are in the courtroom together.
Krupp noted that it’s common for opposing parties in domestic violence cases to be in close proximity in court, even when stay-away orders are in place.
“This case is no different,” Krupp wrote. Outside of Read hearings, Kearney must stay at least 100 feet away from his alleged victims, Krupp said.
Kearney was arrested last month on multiple witness intimidation charges as well as a conspiracy count. He pleaded not guilty in Stoughton District Court and was released on personal recognizance with an order to stay away from his alleged victims.
Thursday’s ruling came in response to Kearney’s motion to lift the stay-away order on First Amendment grounds. Kearney, who boasts a large online following, has posted extensively about the Read case, proclaiming her innocence and accusing witnesses and police of a coverup.
“To say the defendant has taken a pro-defense position on the Read case is to understate the level of his partisanship and advocacy,” Krupp wrote.
Read, 43, is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly backing her SUV into her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022 after a night of drinking, and then driving off, leaving him to die outside in a blizzard.
She has pleaded not guilty and her lawyers have argued that O’Keefe was fatally beaten inside the Canton home, owned by a fellow Boston police officer, after Read dropped him off. Prosecutors have dismissed the claims as baseless.
The charges filed against Kearney stem from his alleged harassment and intimidation of people who were at the Canton home the morning in question and their relatives.
In his ruling, Krupp listed a number of instances in which Kearney allegedly went beyond lawful reporting and criminally harassed witnesses.
The criminal complaints “arise out of defendant’s actions reaching out to witnesses and their family members; organizing a caravan of vehicles to drive by the homes of witnesses or family members; and posting veiled threats, sarcastic and rhetorical questions, and other harassing information in the course of his ‘reporting’ on the Read case,” Krupp wrote.
According to his ruling, Kearney in recent months allegedly confronted a witness at a pizza shop the man owns and urged his online followers to call the business and place orders without picking them up; posted contact information for the employer of the wife of a State Police investigator on the Read case; illegally accessed vehicle registration information for witnesses with the help of a civilian police dispatcher; and derided some witnesses as “cop killers” with a bullhorn outside their home with roughly 100 fellow demonstrators.
As detailed in State Police reports, Kearney’s actions “demonstrate a concerted effort … to cause or threaten economic or emotional injury to witnesses, or family members of witnesses, and to harass those witnesses, to get them to change their testimony,” the judge wrote.
A lawyer for Kearney, Timothy J. Bradl, said Krupp’s ruling was a “split decision.”
“He preserved Mr. Kearney’s fundamental right to investigate the Read case by allowing him to attend all court proceedings in that case, he agreed the District Court stay-away order was too broad, and he reduced it to 100 feet outside of court, but he disagreed with our legal reasoning,” Bradl said in a statement.
Bradl said he’s considering filing an appeal with the state Supreme Judicial Court.
“We expect an appellate court to uphold Mr. Kearney’s and everyone’s First Amendment rights to exhort witnesses to tell the truth and if that is an effort to change their testimony, it would be a change for the better, and must be protected under the First Amendment,” Bradl said.
“If such efforts also caused emotional upset or economic harm, that is not something that is criminalized under our Bill of Rights,” he said. “We know we are correct in this constitutional cause, and we will not relent until the statute is put in its proper constitutional place.”
Kearney took to social media to comment on the ruling.
“Judge Krupp ruled on our motion to vacate the stay away orders and is ‘allowing’ me to go to Karen Read hearings,” Kearney wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “However, he put a 100 foot stay-away order preventing me from asking tough questions to the people who murdered John O’Keefe.”
Kearney’s next court date is slated for Dec. 5, records show.
Read’s next court date in the murder case is scheduled for Jan. 5, with trial set for March, according to legal filings.
‘To say the defendant has taken a prodefense position on the Read case is to understate the level of his partisanship.’
PETER B. KRUPP,
Norfolk Superior Court judge