Latest news with #BrianHiggins
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Karen Read denies noticing confrontation between deceased boyfriend and ATF agent hours before death
Shortly after her lawyers played video that appeared to show the late John O'Keefe and ATF Agent Brian Higgins gesturing aggressively at one another in a bar in Canton, Massachusetts, Karen Read told reporters she wasn't paying attention to the interaction. "The video speaks for itself," she said on her way to a waiting SUV on Thursday. Read is on trial for the second time in the January 2022 murder of her boyfriend, O'Keefe, a Boston police officer. "Do you think John and Brian Higgins were at odds?" a reporter asked her. "It appears that way," Read replied. "It appears that way." Karen Read Defense Gets Boost As Plow Driver Testifies He Saw No Body In Snow During Boston Cop Death Case "Did you pick up on that, though?" the reporter pressed. "I mean, you were with John all night. Were they fighting? Did it seem like they were at each other's throats at all?" Read On The Fox News App "I was not paying attention," Read replied. "As you can see, if you watch the full length of the Waterfall [Waterfall Bar and Grille] between the two trials, I was pretty much in that spot with [witness] Karina [Kolokithas]. We were there for about 90 minutes." "So you didn't notice that?" the reporter asked. Karen Read Defense Floats Theory That 'Jealous' Brian Higgins Fought John O'keefe Before Death "I didn't pick up on it," she said. Read was talking about Karina Kolokithas, a witness for the defense who was present at the Waterfall Bar and Grille in Canton in the hours before O'Keefe was last seen alive. Kolokithas testified that she saw a strange interaction between Jennifer McCabe, whose brother-in-law owns the home where O'Keefe would later be found dead, and Read as they were leaving, but she did not say anything about a fight between Higgins and O'Keefe. "This is exactly why she shouldn't talk about the case," said David Gelman, a Philadelphia-area defense attorney and former prosecutor who has warned for months that Read's public commentary could hurt her at trial. "The prosecution will certainly use this." Karen Read Trial Reveals Flirty Text Messages With Atf Agent Behind Boyfriend's Back Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X On the other hand, Read appears on the video speaking with Kolokithas at length, as she told reporters. "She was having a great conversation with Kolokithas," said Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts trial attorney who is also following the case. Read, O'Keefe, Higgins and several other people who attended an after-party at the nearby home where the Boston police officer would later be found dead were seen on surveillance video at the bar as it was closing for the night. Sign Up To Get The True Crime Newsletter An interaction played in court that took place on their way out appears to show Higgins gesturing toward O'Keefe from across the room and another man, identified as Chris Albert, grabbing his arm. It happened less than an hour before she is accused of killing O'Keefe by striking him with the back corner of her Lexus SUV and leaving him to die on the ground in a blizzard outside Albert's brother's house at 34 Fairview Road. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE True Crime Hub Read's defense has denied her vehicle hit him and has been inviting witness testimony to illustrate other potential causes for his injuries, including a potential fight with Higgins, who was not charged with a crime but was carrying on a flirtatious relationship with Read behind O'Keefe's back. Prosecutors have alleged that investigators recovered from O'Keefe's clothes taillight pieces that matched the Lexus. Multiple witnesses testified that after his remains were found on Jan. 29, 2022, Read repeated the phrase "I hit him. I hit him. I hit him."Original article source: Karen Read denies noticing confrontation between deceased boyfriend and ATF agent hours before death
Irish Independent
7 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Limerick homeowners attempt to cash in amid ‘record-breaking' Ryder Cup demand
Brian Higgins, accommodation manager for Accommodation For The Event, a Kildare-based booking tool, said: 'Some bookings began remarkably early, with the first home for the 2027 event reserved as far back as September 2022. 'That was a fully detached home about 25 minutes from the venue,' said Mr Higgins. Accommodation For The Event has been operating for over a decade, supporting Ryder Cup tournaments globally, including the upcoming 2025 event in New York. 'We pretty much dominate space internationally,' said Mr Higgins. 'Even pro golfers contact the office and Matt Fitzpatrick's company was on to us looking to book a property.' Some high-end homes have been listed at striking rates. One property in Clarina has been listed for €85,000. Still, the platform takes a measured approach to pricing oversight. 'If a property is uploaded above market value, we reach out to the homeowner and ask why,' said Mr Higgins. 'But we can't dictate the price. It's their home and they might include extras like airport transfers or food.' For the Clarina property, the large 5-bed home can sleep over 10 people. Included in the price is a large outdoor sitting area and transport to and from Adare Manor. According to Mr Higgins, listings undergo a review process within 24 hours, and homeowners must pay a registration fee, currently priced at €395, to activate their listing. ADVERTISEMENT 'There's a lot of work that goes into the security,' he explained. 'Payments are linked to credit or debit cards, and we verify every listing with a call.' The no-commission platform offers protections for both parties, including spam-filtered inquiry forms. 'The whole process is designed to protect the families and website users,' Mr Higgins added. Security is expected to tighten tremendously around Adare for the event. 'At the K Club Ryder Cup, people within a two-mile radius needed photo ID just to access their homes,' he recalled. Homes are for rent in Tipperary, Clare, Galway, and further afield.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Yahoo
Karen Read judge blocks Sandra Birchmore mentions; expert says cases should be wake-up call for police
A Massachusetts judge has agreed to bar references to an unrelated, botched murder investigation in Karen Read's second trial on murder and other charges in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe. Police in Canton, a suburb about 20 miles south of Boston, inaccurately determined the Feb. 4, 2021 death of Sandra Birchmore, 24, was a suicide before federal investigators said she had been strangled and charged a Stoughton officer with her murder. The FBI arrested former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell, 38, in August in Birchmore's murder. Karen Read Defense Floats Theory That 'Jealous' Brian Higgins Fought John O'keefe Before Death He is accused of grooming her since she was a teenager, maintaining a sexual relationship for years and then killing her when she told him she'd become pregnant and staging the murder to look like a suicide. Canton Police were also the first to respond after O'Keefe was reported unresponsive outside another Boston Police officer's house Jan. 29, 2022, during a blizzard. Read On The Fox News App Local police collected bloody snow evidence in red Solo cups and placed them in a Stop and Shop grocery bag. A Canton lieutenant used a leaf blower to move snow from where O'Keefe's body had been found. Witnesses were interviewed informally, off camera and not at the police station. Karen Read Trial Reveals Flirty Text Messages With Atf Agent Behind Boyfriend's Back O'Keefe was found dead on Brian Albert's front lawn. Albert's brother is a Canton Police detective. State police took over the investigation later that day. But their involvement wasn't without controversy. The lead detective was fired earlier this year after an internal investigation into unprofessional text messages revealed in court during Read's first trial, which ended in a mistrial. Read the motion: State Trooper Points To Possible Weapon In John O'keefe Death – And It's Not Karen Read's Car "Gov. [Maura] Healey should have ordered the revamping of police training in the state after the debacle in Karen Read 1.0," said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. "Everything from response to the scene by patrol officers to securing the scene to identifying evidence, the proper collection of evidence, the proper containers for that evidence and so on." The two cases prompted town residents to demand an audit into their own police department, and the town board hired a firm called 5 Stones Intelligence, or 5Si. Karen Read's Google Timeline Derailed Again As 2Nd Expert Disputes Defense Claims The firm released its findings in a 206-page report April 1, the same day jury selection began in Read's retrial. It found no evidence that Canton Police had conspired to frame Read, but the auditors recommended that all death cases be reviewed by supervisors in the future. In the report, 5Si recommended that Canton detectives undergo "advanced training" on crime scene investigations and that all patrol vehicles be equipped with crime scene kits and evidence collection bags. They called for an increase in the police department's budget. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE True Crime Hub There was also a federal investigation into the handling of O'Keefe's death. Read remains the only person charged. She faces charges of second-degree murder, drunken driving manslaughter and fleeing a deadly accident for allegedly striking O'Keefe with her Lexus SUV during an argument and leaving him for dead around 12:30 a.m. She and two friends returned at 6 a.m. and found O'Keefe on the ground, covered in snow that had intensified throughout the day. An autopsy found his cause of death was trauma to the head and hypothermia. The manner was undetermined. Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X Read has denied striking O'Keefe at all, pleaded not guilty and suggested she is being framed by local police and their allies. She was first tried on the charges last year, but jurors deadlocked, and Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial. So far in the retrial, at least one evidence bag appears to have been mislabeled, and another had more pieces of broken taillight than expected. Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik was also grilled about a lack of photographs for some evidence and a delay of hundreds of days for some reports in the investigation. "If nothing else, they should be taught documentation, documentation and documentation," Giacalone told Fox News Digital. "These aren't small mistakes. These are errors that will cost you cases, will cause lawsuits in the state of Massachusetts and it just makes everybody in the criminal justice system look bad." "If Massachusetts has this problem, what about other states?" Giacalone said. "Now's the time to nip them in the bud before we find out another Karen Reed trial disaster." Special prosecutor Hank Brennan, a high-profile defense attorney whose clients have included mobster Whitey Bulger, was brought in to lead the second trial. He asked Cannone last week to block the defense from bringing up the Birchmore case as Read's lawyers look to paint the investigation as unreliable and corrupt. She agreed, unless the "door is opened" by prosecutors. "They're not gonna open that door," said Linda Kenney Baden, a high-profile defense attorney who squared off against Read lawyer Alan Jackson, a prosecutor during the first trial of record producer Phil Spector in 2007. Like Read's, it ended in a mistrial. WATCH: Zoomed-in clip appears to show Karen Read backing into parked SUV Still, she said, she believes there is plenty of room for jurors to find reasonable doubt. "They gotta prove she hit him," she said. "It's really as simple as that. It's a drunk-driving hit-and-run." Read's SUV has a broken taillight, and police witnesses described finding matching pieces on Albert's front lawn. But the defense also played surveillance video from O'Keefe's garage that appears to show her backing her SUV into his parked vehicle shortly before she found his remains along with two other women, Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe. Still, the veteran trial attorney praised Brennan's handling of the case and how he's left out key witnesses who may have tanked the prosecution in the first trial and gave the defense less room to maneuver. "The way Brennan has tried this case is that he's not letting any of the bad stuff in, so whenever Alan Jackson goes to the stuff that really hurts them, he doesn't have a place to go there," she said. For one, he left former Massachusetts State Tpr. Michael Proctor off the prosecution's witness list. Proctor sent a series of rude, lewd and unprofessional text messages about Read and the investigation, which led to his firing. He is still on the defense's witness list and could be called to the stand article source: Karen Read judge blocks Sandra Birchmore mentions; expert says cases should be wake-up call for police
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why US Bankruptcies are Rising Again
US Corporate bankruptcies are rising to levels not seen since 2010. King Street Founder and Managing Partner Brian Higgins joined Wall Street Beat on Bloomberg Open Interest to talk about where the cracks are forming--and what to expect as tariff unease ripples through Wall Street and main street. King Street has 30 years of experience investing in credit and manages about $28 billion of assets.
Bloomberg
15-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Why US Bankruptcies are Rising Again
US Corporate bankruptcies are rising to levels not seen since 2010. King Street Founder and Managing Partner Brian Higgins joined Wall Street Beat on Bloomberg Open Interest to talk about where the cracks are forming--and what to expect as tariff unease ripples through Wall Street and main street. King Street has 30 years of experience investing in credit and manages about $28 billion of assets. (Source: Bloomberg)
