BOSTON (AP) — Lawyers for Karen Read have filed an appeal with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court over a judge’s refusal to dismiss two of the three criminal charges against her.
Read, 44, is accused of ramming into her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him for dead during a January 2022 snowstorm. Her two-month trial ended in July when jurors declared they were hopelessly deadlocked and a judge declared a mistrial on the fifth day of deliberations.
Last month, Judge Beverly Cannone rejected a defense motion to dismiss several charges, and prosecutors scheduled a new trial for January 2025. But Read’s attorneys appealed that ruling to the state’s highest court on Wednesday, arguing that trying her again on two of the charges would amount to unconstitutional double jeopardy.
Prosecutors said Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, and O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, had been drinking heavily before she dropped him off at a party at the home of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston officer. They said she hit him with her SUV before driving away. An autopsy found O’Keefe died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.