Prosecutors in the Karen Read case want jurors to hear more about an incident on a 2021 New Year’s trip to Aruba where Read accused her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, of cheating on her, during her trial.
The request comes despite prosecutors agreeing not to bring up testimony about the incident during their case at a prior pre-trial hearing. In a filing, special prosecutor Hank Brennan said the shift in strategy came from Read’s defense “opening the door” for such testimony.
The defense did so, Brennan writes, when they had Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik read a series of “flirtatious” text messages between Read and Brian Higgins, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Explosives and Firearms. In the text exchange, Read claims O’Keefe was “all over [a] friend’s sister in the lobby of our hotel” and accused him of hooking up with another girl in Aruba…