Karen Read trial nears its finale: What each side is banking on
With closing arguments scheduled for Friday morning, jurors will soon begin deliberating Karen Read's fate after 31 days of testimony in her second trial over the death of Boston cop John O'Keefe, her former boyfriend.
Read, 45, is accused of clipping the 46-year-old outside a house party and leaving him to die on the ground during a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022. Her defense denies that a collision ever happened, suggesting he was attacked by someone at the party and a dog instead.
Judge Beverly Cannone denied the defense's second motion for a finding of not guilty Thursday – clearing the way for deliberations to begin.
The following includes core evidence presented by both the prosecution and the defense.
Karen Read Announces She Will Not Testify In Her Defense As Massachusetts Trial Nears Conclusion
Taillight fragments in O'Keefe's clothes
Experts say a glancing vehicle strike caused O'Keefe to fall on the back of his head
Phone data aligns with prosecution timeline
Read's alleged, repeated statements, "I hit him. I hit him. I hit him."
Read's many public statements played in court
Karen Read Murder Trial Reaches Final Stage With Closing Arguments Set For Friday
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Former Whitey Bulger defense lawyer turned special prosecutor Hank Brennan, derided as a "mob lawyer" by Read's vocal supporters, came in to take over the case after last year's mistrial. Assistant Norfolk County District Attorneys Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin returned from the first trial.
Central to Brennan's case is that O'Keefe had plastic fragments that matched Read's taillight embedded in his clothes.
Dr. Aizik Wolf, a renowned brain surgeon, said O'Keefe's injury is consistent with a "classic" fall backward on frozen ground. And a biomechanist named Dr. Judson Welcher testified that Read likely hit him with a glancing blow to the right arm and sent him stumbling backward before he cracked his head on the lawn at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, where he was found under a pile of snow hours later.
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Final Defense Witness In Karen Read Trial Pumps Brakes On Lexus Collision Theory
And in Read's own alleged words, she repeatedly said, "I hit him. I hit him. I hit him."
The timing of Jennifer McCabe's Google search – "hos long to die in cold" – is another key factor, according to Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector who is following the case.
"If at 6:23 a.m., it corroborates Jen McCabe's testimony," he told Fox News Digital. "If you believe Jen McCabe, you pretty much have to convict. You could perhaps acquit on the top charge, but certainly you would have to convict on the manslaughter."
Read asserts the crash never happened
The Bowden defense – investigation was too sloppy to be adequate, and the lead detective got fired
Experts say dog bites caused arm injuries, head injury did not happen on lawn and no signs of hypothermia
Brennan's reference to holes in O'Keefe's hoodie that were put there by crime lab
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Read's legal team includes big-city lawyers from three states – Boston's David Yannetti, New York City's Robert Alessi, and Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little from Los Angeles.
In her first trial, Yannetti and Jackson argued that Read had been "framed" by local and state police. This time around, they focused on the theory that Read's 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV never struck O'Keefe.
They also deployed a "Bowden defense" – attempting to show the police investigation was "inadequate." Investigators collected evidence in red Solo cups and shopping bags, used a leaf blower to move snow, mislabeled evidence and did not seek a search warrant for the house at the address where they recovered O'Keefe's remains.
Former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, a homicide detective on the case, later lost his job for sharing confidential and law enforcement sensitive information on an R-rated text chain that also included lewd remarks about the defendant.
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Defense experts testified that the minor abrasions on O'Keefe's right arm were not caused by contact with Read's broken taillight, but rather by dog or animal bites. Dr. Daniel Wolfe and Dr. Andrew Rentschler disputed Welcher's findings with testing of their own, using a crash dummy arm that they said could not reproduce the same damage to a Lexus taillight.
The blow to the back of his head – which fractured his skull – did not come from contact on the frozen lawn, but rather by contact with a ridged, grainy surface, according to Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a forensic pathologist and clinical professor at Brown University.
Laposata also disputed autopsy findings that indicated O'Keefe had hypothermia – testifying that his internal injuries came from resuscitation attempts and not damage from the cold.
"The defense case is science, science and then more science," said Mark Bederow, a New York City attorney representing Read ally and Canton blogger Aidan Kearney. "No car accident, then no crime."
Read faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted on the top charge. If convicted of drunken driving manslaughter, she would face 5 to 20.Original article source: Karen Read trial nears its finale: What each side is banking on
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Chabria: The gaslighting of Alex Padilla is already in full swing on the right
Lunging men are perceived as dangerous. In an America that has long weaponized descriptions of how men of color look and move to justify use of force, that is especially true of dark men lunging at white women. So when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said after Sen. Alex Padilla interrupted her news conference Thursday that "people need to identify themselves before they start lunging" — it's hard to believe it wasn't meant to be an intentionally loaded word, with loaded results. For those of you who don't watch Fox and other right-wing media, I'll fill you in on how Noem's description played out. Padilla, the Trumpian version of the story now goes, got what he deserved: He busted into a press conference uninvited, they say, pushed his way toward the stage and failed to identify himself. Just ask my inbox. "Here is what your article should have said," wrote one fan of my column about the incident. "'DEI appointee Senator Alex Padilla, dressed like a truck driver and acting like a potential attacker or mental case, burst into a press conference being conducted by a high ranking member of the Cabinet and started shouting and interrupting her.'" Another reader put that dog-whistle racism more succinctly. "No Juan above the law," the reader quipped. We'll get to whether Padilla lunged or not and just how dangerous a lunge really is. But the larger issue is the alternate reality the Trump administration is building to cultivate fear and build support for a military crackdown. The ask isn't that we believe Padilla was a threat, but that we believe that America has devolved into a immigrant-induced chaos that only the military can quell, and that Trump needs the powers of a king to lead the military to our salvation. Read more: Chabria: Trump detests the very thing we love about L.A. So the question isn't really whether Padilla lunged or not — since, as the video shows, it's clear he was nowhere close to Noem and had no intent to harm — but rather why Noem chose to call it a lunge. "It was very disingenuous of Kristi Noem to make the claim that he lunged at her," Joan Donovan told me. She's an expert on disinformation and an assistant professor of journalism at Boston University. "The Trump administration is salivating over a major contestation that would allow them to roll the military out into any old town," she said. "They are making it seem as if without this kind of major intervention and excessive force, that these people are ungovernable." Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, is known to be a level-headed guy. My colleague Gustavo Arellano describes him as a "goody-two-shoes." But these aren't level-headed days. 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And if there was one, it was from at least a good 10 feet away from Noem, at a minimum. Use-of-force expert Ed Obayashi told me that in situations such as this, law enforcement officers are expected to use their judgment on what is a danger. "They were trying to keep him from approaching," Obayashi said, pointing out it was the officers' job to protect Noem. "They were trying to do what they could under the circumstances to prevent him from getting closer." But, he added, from what we can see in the videos, it doesn't look like Padilla showed "intent" to cause harm and he was really far away. Distance makes a difference when judging whether a lunge is a threat. "It doesn't seem like he was going to rush up," Obayashi said. So, to be fair to officers who may or may not have at first realized they were manhandling a U.S. senator, they had a job to do and were doing it, even if a bit zealously. But Noem knows better. 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So what could have been handled as an unfortunate encounter was instead purposely upgraded for propaganda purposes. Shortly after Noem's statement, the White House press secretary posted on X that Padilla "recklessly lunged toward the podium," cementing that narrative into right-wing conscientiousness. For weeks, the Trump administration has been ramping up its war on dissent. Weeks before Padilla was handcuffed, U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was indicted by a grand jury for "forcibly impeding and interfering" with federal law enforcement after a scuffle outside of a New Jersey ICE detention center. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested during the same incident, but charges were later dropped. Read more: Arellano: Sen. Alex Padilla's crime? Being Mexican in MAGA America In April, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested inside her own courthouse after being accused of helping an immigrant appearing in her court to evade ICE officers by allowing him to exit through a public door. And just before the Padilla incident, Noem claimed that federal agents would remain in Los Angeles despite protests, where hundreds have been cited or arrested. By Friday, Marines had been deployed in Los Angeles, with little clarity on whether their guns contained live rounds and under what circumstances they were authorized to fire. 'We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city," Noem said, right before Padilla interrupted. Liberate an American city. With troops. Quash dissent. With fear. A survey last fall by PRRI found that 26% of Republicans say that 'it is necessary for the progress of this country that the president has the power to limit the influence of opposing parties and groups.' It also found that there is a "strong overlap among Americans who hold Christian nationalist and authoritarian views." "If it is the case that Trump and Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth are going to continue arresting Democratic representatives, then that is authoritarianism," Donovan said. "Those are the people whose job it is to represent the common man, and if they can't do that because they're so bogged down with false charges or trumped-up charges, then we don't live in a democracy." Padilla may have lost his trademark cool during that press conference, but Noem did not. She knew exactly what she was saying, and why. A Padilla asking questions is a threat to Trump. A Padilla lunging becomes a threat to society, one that only Trump can stop. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
The gaslighting of Alex Padilla is already in full swing on the right
Lunging men are perceived as dangerous. In an America that has long weaponized descriptions of how men of color look and move to justify use of force, that is especially true of dark men lunging at white women. So when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said after Sen. Alex Padilla interrupted her news conference Thursday that 'people need to identify themselves before they start lunging' — it's hard to believe it wasn't meant to be an intentionally loaded word, with loaded results. For those of you who don't watch Fox and other right-wing media, I'll fill you in on how Noem's description played out. Padilla, the Trumpian version of the story now goes, got what he deserved: He busted into a press conference uninvited, they say, pushed his way toward the stage and failed to identify himself. Just ask my inbox. 'Here is what your article should have said,' wrote one fan of my column about the incident. ''DEI appointee Senator Alex Padilla, dressed like a truck driver and acting like a potential attacker or mental case, burst into a press conference being conducted by a high ranking member of the Cabinet and started shouting and interrupting her.'' Another reader put that dog-whistle racism more succinctly. 'No Juan above the law,' the reader quipped. We'll get to whether Padilla lunged or not and just how dangerous a lunge really is. But the larger issue is the alternate reality the Trump administration is building to cultivate fear and build support for a military crackdown. The ask isn't that we believe Padilla was a threat, but that we believe that America has devolved into a immigrant-induced chaos that only the military can quell, and that Trump needs the powers of a king to lead the military to our salvation. So the question isn't really whether Padilla lunged or not — since, as the video shows, it's clear he was nowhere close to Noem and had no intent to harm — but rather why Noem chose to call it a lunge. 'It was very disingenuous of Kristi Noem to make the claim that he lunged at her,' Joan Donovan told me. She's an expert on disinformation and an assistant professor of journalism at Boston University. 'The Trump administration is salivating over a major contestation that would allow them to roll the military out into any old town,' she said. 'They are making it seem as if without this kind of major intervention and excessive force, that these people are ungovernable.' Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, is known to be a level-headed guy. My colleague Gustavo Arellano describes him as a 'goody-two-shoes.' But these aren't level-headed days. Padilla said that he was in the federal building on Thursday for a briefing with a general, because for weeks he's been trying unsuccessfully to get answers about how deportations are being handled. That briefing was delayed by Noem's news conference, and so — escorted by federal authorities who knew exactly who they were escorting, Padilla said — he went to listen to Noem in the hopes of getting some information. Padilla said he got fed up listening to her remarks about criminals and invasions and tried to ask a question, while moving forward past the wall of television cameras. In the videos I've watched, multiple federal agents — seemingly some from Homeland Security and the FBI — block his way then begin pushing him back. Padilla seems to continue to push forward, but is overpowered and forced into the hallway. It's here where he's taken to the ground and cuffed. It's hard to see a lunge in there. And if there was one, it was from at least a good 10 feet away from Noem, at a minimum. Use-of-force expert Ed Obayashi told me that in situations such as this, law enforcement officers are expected to use their judgment on what is a danger. 'They were trying to keep him from approaching,' Obayashi said, pointing out it was the officers' job to protect Noem. 'They were trying to do what they could under the circumstances to prevent him from getting closer.' But, he added, from what we can see in the videos, it doesn't look like Padilla showed 'intent' to cause harm and he was really far away. Distance makes a difference when judging whether a lunge is a threat. 'It doesn't seem like he was going to rush up,' Obayashi said. So, to be fair to officers who may or may not have at first realized they were manhandling a U.S. senator, they had a job to do and were doing it, even if a bit zealously. But Noem knows better. It's hard to imagine she didn't recognize Padilla, who served on her confirmation committee and is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Safety. And if she didn't, her confidant and close advisor Corey Lewandowski certainly did. Padilla told the New York Times that he was being detained in the hallway 'when of all people, Corey Lewandowski ... comes running down the hall and he starts yelling, 'Let him go! Let him go!'' And of course, Padilla was yelling that he was a senator, and forcefully denies any lunge. 'I wasn't lunging at her or anybody, and yes, I identified myself,' he said on CNN. Noem, of course, could have said something in the moment to defuse the situation. She could have asked Padilla back into the room to answer his question. Padilla said the two met after the news conference and spoke for about 15 minutes, which means Noem knew his intentions when she later accused him of 'lunging.' So what could have been handled as an unfortunate encounter was instead purposely upgraded for propaganda purposes. Shortly after Noem's statement, the White House press secretary posted on X that Padilla 'recklessly lunged toward the podium,' cementing that narrative into right-wing conscientiousness. For weeks, the Trump administration has been ramping up its war on dissent. Weeks before Padilla was handcuffed, U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was indicted by a grand jury for 'forcibly impeding and interfering' with federal law enforcement after a scuffle outside of a New Jersey ICE detention center. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested during the same incident, but charges were later dropped. In April, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested inside her own courthouse after being accused of helping an immigrant appearing in her court to evade ICE officers by allowing him to exit through a public door. And just before the Padilla incident, Noem claimed that federal agents would remain in Los Angeles despite protests, where hundreds have been cited or arrested. By Friday, Marines had been deployed in Los Angeles, with little clarity on whether their guns contained live rounds and under what circumstances they were authorized to fire. 'We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city,' Noem said, right before Padilla interrupted. Liberate an American city. With troops. Quash dissent. With fear. A survey last fall by PRRI found that 26% of Republicans say that 'it is necessary for the progress of this country that the president has the power to limit the influence of opposing parties and groups.' It also found that there is a 'strong overlap among Americans who hold Christian nationalist and authoritarian views.' 'If it is the case that Trump and Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth are going to continue arresting Democratic representatives, then that is authoritarianism,' Donovan said. 'Those are the people whose job it is to represent the common man, and if they can't do that because they're so bogged down with false charges or trumped-up charges, then we don't live in a democracy.' Padilla may have lost his trademark cool during that press conference, but Noem did not. She knew exactly what she was saying, and why. A Padilla asking questions is a threat to Trump. A Padilla lunging becomes a threat to society, one that only Trump can stop.
CBS News
an hour ago
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Massachusetts optician harassed for "FRAMED" license plate during Karen Read trial
A Middleboro optician thought her vanity license plate was a cute tongue-in-cheek ode to her job until it became a rallying cry from for Karen Read supporters. Now the owner of the license plate "FRAMED" is getting shouted at and her car vandalized. "I've had people like literally speeding up to me on the highway, to like catch up to my driver side window to give me the thumbs up and stuff," said Lauren Downey. She has had the vanity plate for three years now, but during the Karen Read trial, her supporters have started to have her plate put on banners and wearable merchandise. One man in New Hampshire got the same plate for that state, and he wears it around his neck outside the courthouse. Supporters of Karen Read gather before the murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. Mark Stockwell / AP "My husband is over there, and he couldn't believe it," Downey said. "He's seeing the plate in real life. We saw it on t-shirt." The plate has also been all over social media. Car keyed twice The controversy surrounding the trial has carried home with Downey. Twice now, someone has keyed her car because of the plate. She has had people screaming obscenities at her or even run across parking lots to praise her plate. At times, her children are in the car. "People are giving me the middle finger in a parking lot or at an intersection," said Downey. "I would love to think they are that excited over glasses that would be great." Lauren Downey's "FRAMED" license plate. CBS Boston Downey put in for the license plate three years ago. It was supposed to be a play on her job as an optician who helps people find the correct eye glass frames. It also wasn't the only name she submitted. "When you sign up for a vanity plate, you submit for three different options and then the registry chooses which one you receive," said Downey. "I can change my plate, but that may not make sense at this point." The retrial of Karen Read is now in the jury's hands. Downey is waiting until the trial is over before fixing the damage to the car in case something else happens.
