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Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox claimed he didn’t know one of his officers was associated with Read’s case. Jackson is calling foul.
Karen Read attorney Alan Jackson is back on the warpath in his quest to “pull back the curtain” on policing in Massachusetts, and this time Boston’s leading cop is in the hot seat.
“Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox has been caught in a lie — and not a small one,” Jackson wrote in a blistering letter to Mayor Michelle Wu Monday, calling for a disciplinary breakdown over Cox’s remarks about a former officer who testified during Read’s second trial.
Jackson’s letter focuses on comments Cox made to reporters on July 10, when he denied pressuring then-Boston Police Officer Kelly Dever into changing her testimony and claimed he didn’t even know Dever was associated with Read’s case.
“I have nothing to do with Karen Read,” Cox said at the time.
Read, 45, was accused of backing her SUV into her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, on a snowy night in Canton in January 2022. Her lawyers maintained she was framed in a law enforcement conspiracy, and jurors ultimately acquitted her of murder and manslaughter charges in June.
Calling Cox’s statements “patently false” and “a bald-faced lie,” Jackson pointed out O’Keefe not only worked as a Boston police officer but was found unresponsive on another Boston officer’s lawn.
“For the Commissioner to suggest that he had ‘nothing to do with that case’ defies both logic and leadership,” Jackson charged. “Common sense tells us he had everything to do with it.”
Cox was still chief of the Ann Arbor Police Department in Michigan when O’Keefe died, though Read’s case dominated national headlines. Her two murder trials — a 2024 mistrial and subsequent retrial — put added scrutiny on local police departments amid allegations of sloppy investigating and evidence tampering.
Taking the stand in June, Dever testified about working as a patrol officer in Canton the morning O’Keefe’s body was found in the snow. During a combative line of questioning from Jackson, she grew testy as she denied seeing “anything unusual” in the station’s sallyport garage while working dispatch.
While Dever confirmed she initially told federal investigators she had seen witness Brian Higgins and then-Chief Kenneth Berkowitz enter the garage together “for a wildly long time” while Read’s SUV was there, she said she was later reminded she’d left the station before the vehicle arrived.
“It was a distorted memory,” Dever testified, further alleging Read’s lawyers threatened to accuse her of perjury “if I didn’t lie on the stand right immediately.”
Dever also confirmed she spoke with Cox at some point prior to her testimony, but that he “just wanted me to tell the truth up here.” She denied anyone in the Canton or Boston police departments advised her what to say on the stand.
Refuting Cox’s claim that he “didn’t even know” Dever was associated with the Read case, Jackson pointed to a calendar entry for Cox’s meeting with Dever and an email from an FBI agent regarding the thousands of pages of documents released as part of a federal probe into the case.
“Just a reminder, the documents were released to the DA’s office late last night,” the agent’s Feb. 22, 2024, email to Cox reads. “The officer we spoke about is Kelly Dever.”
Jackson demanded Cox be referred for immediate inclusion on Suffolk County prosecutors’ Brady list, used to track law enforcement officials whose credibility has come under fire. He also called for the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission to initiate “a full disciplinary breakdown for dishonesty, lack of candor, and conduct unbecoming an officer.”
The Boston Police Department, POST Commission, and mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday morning.
“This is not a political issue,” Jackson argued. “It is a question of credibility and public trust. When Boston’s leading law-enforcement officer lies about his own knowledge of a case under federal scrutiny, the stain spreads across the entire system. Accountability cannot stop at the Commissioner’s door.”
He said adding Cox to the Brady list and opening the POST inquiry is the “only one responsible course” in light of documented evidence. Jackson previously made a similar request that Dever be added to the Brady list.
“The people of Massachusetts deserve law enforcement leaders who tell the truth — not those who hide behind it,” he asserted Monday.
Read Jackson’s full letter:
Immediate Brady Listing and POST breakdown — Commissioner Michael Cox
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