Karen Read trial reveals flirty text messages with ATF agent behind boyfriend's back
Legal experts are handing Karen Read's defense team the win for Friday's heated cross-examination of Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik – who returned for his second day on the stand as prosecutors look to convince the jury that Read fatally struck her boyfriend, Boston cop John O'Keefe, and left him to die in a blizzard in January 2022.
During hours of cross-examination from defense attorney Alan Jackson, the homicide investigator was asked to read a long string of text messages exchanged between Read and Brian Higgins, a Canton-based ATF agent with whom she was flirting behind O'Keefe's back.
Having Bukhenik read the texts allows the defense to introduce hearsay statements into the case, according to Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defense attorney who is following the case closely. They also raise questions about the integrity of the investigation, something the defense has aimed to discredit entirely.
"They are being entered not for the truth of what is contained in them but to show that they existed," she told Fox News Digital. "That is important because the defense wants to be able to argue that these messages existed, and did or did not the investigation consider them as a lead? Wouldn't the knowledge of a romantic flirtation between Karen Read and Brian Higgins create the possibility of conflict between Brian Higgins and John O'Keefe?"
She said that both sides performed well Friday and credited Hank Brennan, the special prosecutor brought in to handle Read's retrial, with devising a new strategy after the first trial ended in a mistrial. But she said the defense won out slightly.
"Great lawyering on both sides today. Hank Brennan's new trial strategy indicates he won't need to call upon Brian Albert or Brian Higgins or Michael Proctor," she said. "They have stretched the witness to the max the last few days. Alan Jackson appears to have worn the witness down and there was damaging testimony regarding the handling of evidence. Overall, I felt the defense achieved more of their goals today."
Sgt. Bukhenik spent hours on the stand Friday, reading through flirty text messages between Read and Brian Higgins, an ATF agent and potential love interest whom she contacted behind O'Keefe's back.
The Ukraine native, who immigrated to the U.S. when he was nine and joined the Marine Corps after 9/11, often sparred with Jackson about semantics, asking for a copy of Webster's Dictionary at one point, telling the court that English was his "third language."
Frequent objections from the special prosecutor, Hank Brennan, also interrupted the proceedings as Judge Beverly Cannone repeatedly called the sides to the bench for off-camera discussions.
At one point, Jackson replayed video shown earlier of Read backing out of O'Keefe's garage the morning he was found dead. The defense clip included a layover of a box with a zoomed-in view of O'Keefe's vehicle, which was parked outside. It appeared to bounce in place as Read neared it with her rear bumper – the same one later found with a broken taillight.
"The prosecution looks like it's trying to hide the truth with all objections," said Linda Kenney Baden, a prominent East Coast defense attorney who is closely following the case on her "Justice Served" podcast.
Another damning moment, she said, was when Bukhenik admitted that no pieces of Read's broken taillight were recovered until after her vehicle - the alleged murder weapon – was parked inside the sallyport at Canton Police Headquarters.
But she said it was Bukhenik's responses to Jackson that may have turned off jurors – calling the day a win for the defense.
In the texts, Read, now 45, discussed her relationship struggles, repeatedly mentioning that she was not married and referred to herself as "single" despite, as Higgins wrote, having a "live in boyfriend."
They discussed finding each other "hot," a kiss they shared outside O'Keefe's house, heavy drinking and danced around laying out their intentions for one another.
"Are you breaking up or staying together?" Higgins asked at one point, about Read and O'Keefe.
"I don't know," Read replied. "He hooked up with another girl on vacation. I am very close to his niece. It's a very f----- up situation."
Higgins repeatedly asked Read for clarity about her intentions, although they both said they found each other attractive and traded invites to one another's homes.
"Ok, so he is cool with you dating other people?" Higgins asked in another exchange.
"I doubt it," Read wrote. "If he is seeing someone else I wouldn't want to know either way. He probably feels the same. And you probably feel that way about whoever you hook up with. I think that's normal."
Higgins was present at the Waterfall Bar and Grille with Read, O'Keefe and others before the whole group went to the nearby home of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston police officer who is also close friends with Higgins.
Read has claimed she dropped O'Keefe off, saw him go inside and left.
Prosecutors allege that she hit him with the rear end of the Lexus SUV and left him to die on the ground.
Read had pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, manslaughter and fleeing the scene. Her defense denied that a collision happened at all and insists his fatal injuries were inflicted in some other way - possibly a "fight" with one or more people at the after-party.
Read's first trial, in which she claimed she was being framed by a group of law enforcement with ties to Albert and his family, ended with a deadlocked jury and a mistrial.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan, a prominent Massachusetts defense attorney who previously represented Whitey Bulger, was brought in to take over the reins from Assistant Norfolk County District Attorney Adam Lally, who is still part of the prosecution team.
While Read has said that whether she will testify in her own defense remains "to be determined," Brennan sought and obtained video interviews that Read had given to various TV outlets and documentarians and has been playing clips in court for the jury.
In the texts, Higgins told Read he wasn't interested in "drama" but continued the two-way flirting until she sent a chilling text to him around noon on Jan. 29, 2022.
"John died," she wrote.
Just hours earlier, while she was out drinking with O'Keefe about an hour before the end of his life, Higgins sent two texts to her that went unanswered around 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 28, 2022.
Lawyers for both parties also agreed in court that at 12:20 a.m. the following morning, Higgins also texted O'Keefe. "You coming here???"
Earlier, Jackson also grilled Bukhenik over how evidence was handled in the case. Bukhenik testified that no taillight fragments had been recovered until after Read's SUV was in state police custody. He couldn't say which officer had filled out an evidence bag under his name and didn't remember whom he had given the unsigned evidence to.
Jackson asked him whether he was aware that more than a dozen reports in the case weren't written until more than 100 days after the events that they were supposed to "memorialize" had taken place. He said he was not.
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Police witnesses may be hurting the case due to missteps that shouldn't have happened had routine protocols been followed, according to Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD cold case investigator and an adjunct crminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley.
"A tie goes to the defense," he said of Friday's testimony. "The Massachusetts State Police have a major problem on their hands."
The MSP fired former Trooper Michael Proctor, who was a lead investigator in the case, after his testimony during the first trial revealed unprofessional text messages he had sent regarding Read. He could testify when the defense presents its case later in the trial.
Local police also testified that they used red Solo cups and a grocery bag to collect evidence, removed snow with a leafblower and continued to be involved on the outskirts of the case despite a conflict of interest – one of their detectives is Brian Albert's brother.
"The prosecution is going to go home this weekend and reevaluate things, because this week couldn't have been worse," said David Gelman, a former prosecutor and Philadelphia-area defense attorney who is following the case.
He previously told Fox News Digital he was surprised the commonwealth even moved forward with a new trial after the first case fell apart.
On the other hand, digital evidence has not supported defense claims.
Two experts have testified that Albert's sister-in-law, Jennifer McCabe, made a key Google search about hypothermia shortly after Read and two other women found O'Keefe unresponsive in the snow – not hours earlier, before anyone should have known he was dead, as the defense has claimed.
And reading the texts in court could be a "double-edged sword," said Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector. Did Higgins have a reason to get into an altercation with O'Keefe? Or do they paint Read as manipulative and untruthful?
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