Read lawyers cite calls as coverup evidence
Communications mentioned in the grand jury probe
DEDHAM — Lawyers for Karen Read, the Mansfield woman accused of backing her SUV into her boyfriend and leaving him for dead in a blizzard in 2022, cited evidence on Wednesday of phone communications they say point to a law enforcement coverup in the sensational case.
Read, 43, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of an accident causing personal injury and death.
Prosecutors allege that she ran into John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, in front of a home in Canton early on Jan. 29, 2022, after a night of bar hopping in that South Shore town. Read’s lawyers have claimed that O’Keefe was fatally beaten at a party inside the home, which was owned by a fellow Boston officer, Brian Albert, and his body was planted on the lawn outside.
Acting US Attorney Joshua S.
Levy’s office has convened a grand jury to investigate law enforcement’s handling of the case, and on Wednesday, defense attorney David Yannetti cited information from the probe, which federal prosecutors have provided under seal to the lawyers on both sides and presiding Judge Beverly J. Cannone.
Prosecutors have said Read returned to the Canton home around 6 a.m. with two other women and after finding O’Keefe’s body in the snow allegedly said, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.” Read’s lawyers have countered that a witness inside the home searched online shortly before 2:30 a.m., “hos [sic] long to die in cold,” a time stamp disputed by prosecutors.
On Wednesday, Yannetti said the defense is seeking phone records, including communications between Albert and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent Brian Higgins, who was at the Canton home the night O’Keefe was killed.
Federal grand jury records, Yannetti said, indicate that Higgins initially testified before the panel that he did not make any phone calls early on Jan. 29 when he returned home from Albert’s residence.
However, Yannetti said, phone re
cords revealed that Albert called Higgins at 2:22 a.m. on Jan. 29 and that Higgins called him back 17 seconds later.
Higgins initially tried to claim when confronted with the records that the call was a “butt dial,” Yannetti said, but later admitted to calling Albert back deliberately. That call lasted for 22 seconds, Yannetti said.
Albert also revised his testimony before the federal grand jury, Yannetti said. He first claimed his initial call to Higgins was a “butt dial.” When he testified a second time, Yannetti said, Albert claimed he “supposedly butt dialed Brian Higgins” as he and his wife were in bed.
“But again, that would mean that his butt also answered the phone when Higgins called back and it doesn’t make any sense,” Yannetti said.
The federal records cited by Yannetti have not been available for public view owing to their impoundment.
“The facts as recited in the defendant’s motion, the Commonwealth would submit, are largely inaccurate,” said Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally during Wednesday’s hearing. “Injected with hyperbole, injected with conjecture in regard to federal grand jury materials, which belie much of what counsel claims that they say. [It is] essentially unsubstantiated conjecture, which is directly contradicted by the testimony and the evidence contained within the federal materials.”
And lawyers for Higgins and Albert also vouched for their clients.
Albert’s lawyer Greg Henning said Albert and his family are “not targets of the federal investigation,” adding that he’s “been given permission to disclose that in open court.”
Levy’s office hasn’t commented publicly on the federal probe.
“Brian Albert does not object to turning over the [phone records] that have been requested,” Henning said. “Brian Albert does not have anything to hide. He does not have anything [untoward] that he needs to prevent the court from seeing this material.”
Higgins’s lawyer, William Connolly, said his client also is “not a target” of the federal investigation.
“The US attorney’s office has continuously confirmed throughout its investigation that Brian Higgins is not a target of their investigation,” Connolly said. “Brian Higgins has not participated in any kind of a coverup or conspiracy to cover up the criminal activity of others.”
Connolly said Higgins opposes the defense motion seeking phone records including his and Albert’s communications from April 2023 to the present on privacy grounds, “not because Brian Higgins has done something wrong or has something to hide.”
Yannetti also raised questions about former Canton police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz, whose successor took over in June 2022, five months after O’Keefe’s death.
“Brian Higgins’s phone records, we learned [from the federal material], reveal that Canton police Chief Berkowitz was involved in interacting with both men shortly after John O’Keefe’s body was found,” Yannetti said. “You have a threeminute call with Berkowitz at 7:22 in the morning ... on Jan. 29.”
Higgins spoke with Berkowitz four times that day, and the two spoke “many additional times” between then and Feb. 4, Yannetti said.
“Now, recall that Chief Berkowitz supposedly found a piece of taillight on Brian Albert’s lawn on Feb. 4, after that lawn had been searched by trained investigators and other police officers multiple times without finding it,” Yanetti said. “But somehow Chief Berkowitz was able to spot that piece of taillight while he was driving past the property from his moving vehicle. And the phone records show that Berkowitz called Higgins that very day to tell him about the discovery, and then Higgins calls Brian Albert to tell him.”
No lawyer for Berkowitz addressed the court Wednesday.
State prosecutors have said Read allegedly hit O’Keefe with the right rear taillight of her SUV. Prosecutors have said O’Keefe’s DNA was found on microscopic pieces of red and clear plastic recovered at the scene.
“Brian has spent his career saving lives,” said Higgin’s attorney, Connolly, on Wednesday. “He was a firefighter before becoming an ATF agent. He’s been an EMT since 1992 . ... He has served our military in Iraq. Participating in a coverup is contrary to who he is as a human being and a professional.”
The case has drawn national headlines fueled largely by Aidan Kearney, a blogger known as Turtleboy who boasts a massive online following and who has vocally championed Read’s claims of innocence. He faces charges of allegedly intimidating witnesses in the case and has pleaded not guilty.
Many of Kearney and Read’s devoted followers pack the courthouse for their hearings, and Wednesday was no different.
Read left the courthouse to cheers after the hearing concluded, and among her supporters was Lisa Pyrcz, of Needham, who said she takes off work to attend the court proceedings.
”I just started looking into it and there’s just so much,” she said.
Read’s trial is slated for April 16, but Cannone is also weighing a defense motion to dismiss the indictment.