Karen Read attorneys discuss key moment that led to murder acquittal

Karen Read’s attorneys revealed over the weekend the turning point at trial that they believe tanked special prosecutor Hank Brennan’s credibility in front of the jury.

“My immediate thought was, I think he just lost the case,” Read attorney David Yannetti told Canadian lawyer and podcaster Ian Runkle over the weekend. “My immediate thought was that was the biggest gift we could’ve been handed in this trial. I wasn’t concerned about, was it intentional? Was it an accident? Who knew about it? Etc. The optics were terrible. It allowed Alan [Jackson], in closing argument to sort of rattle off a litany of stuff that was suspect.”

He was talking about a misstep Brennan made while questioning defense expert Dr. Daniel Wolfe about holes in the victim’s sweatshirt – holes that a Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab technician put there.

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“The one thing you don’t want to do something as a trial lawyer is to promise something and then not deliver – but more importantly, say something’s true and it turns out it wasn’t,” Yannetti said.

Jurors found Read not guilty of murder, manslaughter and fleeing the scene of a deadly crash following two Massachusetts trials in the death of her former boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. They found her guilty of only a drunken driving charge, for which she will serve a year of probation.

“I was stunned that it occurred,” Robert Alessi, another of Read’s defense attorneys, told Runkle of the hoodie incident. “My heart broke for a moment, but it was a millisecond and I went into overdrive in regard to combating it.”

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He demanded a mistrial with prejudice after the gaffe. Judge Beverly Cannone denied his motion, but the defense plowed forward.

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“These charges, they were unjust – they were unwarranted – in my judgment,” Alessi said. “At the start of the retrial, once people were able to assimilate the evidence and understand it, my hope, even my expectation was the top-line charge should’ve been withdrawn.”

Officer John O’Keefe poses for his official portrait. O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Reed, is currently on trial for murder after he was found dead outside a Massachusetts home in January 2022. (Boston Police Department)

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The state went too far on a shaky case, Alessi said, and he called on voters to enact reforms.

“Spoiler alert – there never was a collision,” he told Runkle.

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Karen Read is surrounded by reporters as she and her legal team leave the Dedham, Massachusetts, courthouse after the judge issued instructions to the jury in Read’s trial at Norfolk Superior Court on Friday, June 13, 2025. (Josh Reynolds/AP Photo)

Several jurors have spoken out about how they reached their verdict, including two who were skeptical of the police investigation, which included storing blood samples in red Solo cups, mislabeled evidence bags and a fired lead investigator.

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Another juror, speaking with local WCVB-TV over the weekend, said she had gone into the case with an open mind but was leaning toward a guilty verdict before changing her mind over four days of deliberations.

“We’ve got a great democracy, and I am hopeful that the great people of this country that I love will take action, exercise the right to vote, stand up, be heard, and cause reform to be made,” Alessi added.

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“And do it in a constructive way, a peaceful way, but an aggressive way.”