Defense attorneys for Karen Read said that the federal probe into the investigation that led their client to be charged with murder includes phone calls they say paints a clear picture of a conspiracy to frame their client.
Read, of Mansfield, is charged with second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision in the Jan. 29, 2022, death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, 46, her boyfriend of two years.
Defense attorney David Yannetti said Wednesday that the U.S. Attorney’s office for Massachusetts — which is conducting a grand jury investigation into the Read case — found that phone calls were going on immediately following O’Keefe’s murder between principal members of the defense team’s theory of a conspiracy against Read.
Chief among them are Boston Police Sgt. Det. Brian Albert, who owned the home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton where O’Keefe’s body was found. Also alleged to be in the call pool were ATF Agent Brian Higgins; Canton Police Officer Kevin Albert, who is Brian Albert’s brother; and then-Canton Police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz.
Yannetti said at a court hearing on the case that his team has filed motions for the call logs of each of them.
Wednesday was the last day for such motions to be filed in the case ahead of trial, so Yannetti also disclosed that his team had just filed another motion and would be filing yet another motion to dismiss by the end of the business day. The case is set to return for another hearing Tuesday.
Yannetti also expressed concern over whether the Canton Police were even capable of ethically investigating this case when their force includes the brother of a principal state witness and a man the defense says is culpable for O’Keefe’s death.
“My goodness … with all the allegations of witness intimidation thrown around by this DA’s office,” Yannetti said, “why is Kevin Albert not being investigated?”
He said that the Norfolk District Attorney’s office could have subpoenaed these records at any point and chose not to, whereas the feds did subpoena them so at least everyone now knows they exist.
“Thank God another law enforcement agency stepped in to do the job that the DA’s office would not,” he said.
Yannetti drew chuckles, as well, when he said the men had explained such a flurry of calls as merely “butt dials.” In an example, he said Higgins had described himself as being alone the night of one call of concern and was in bed with his phone on the table.
“I’ve never seen a case that has had so many butt dials,” Yannetti said. “His butt was in the bed, his phone was on the table. The two could not have met; there could not have been a butt dial.”
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally described much of Yannetti’s motion as “largely inaccurate, full of hyperbole” as well as “unsubstantiated conjecture” and, finally, “the very epitome of a fishing expedition.”
The motions being argued are sealed, and so the further points of the motions and responses are unknown.
The extraordinarily complex case is made all the more so because the federal materials are also sealed, with access limited to the defense team and the prosecutors. Those groups are allowed, however, to make reference to the materials in court as needed.
It’s not just the public that’s left in the dark, however. Attorneys for outside interested parties, including the men whose phone records Yannetti is asking for, have also been barred from them.
Attorney Gregory Henning, who represents Brian Albert, said his client “does not have anything to hide,” but said that without review of the motions he had inadequate preparation to fully argue them. Henning added that he had confirmed with the U.S. Attorney’s office that neither his client, nor his client’s wife or daughter are part of the federal investigation.
Attorneys for Higgins and Berkowitz said largely the same thing, but that they oppose the motions on privacy grounds since they find the arguments not compelling enough to fish into their clients’ personal lives. Attorney William Connolly said that his client, Higgins, is also not a subject of the federal probe.
That these attorneys did not have the full motions was news to Judge Beverly Cannone. She told Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally, the prosecutor, that she had ordered the motions be given to the outside parties for this very reason.
Lally said he had sent only the cover sheets “out of an abundance of caution” based on his reading of the law. Cannone said she understood but overruled him and ordered the full motions be made available to the counsel for each of the parties.
It was a sequel of sorts to the last hearing, in which Read’s other defense attorney Alan Jackson said that information in that federal probe also indicates a clear relationship between primary Massachusetts State Police investigator Trooper Michael Proctor members of a family the defense has held up as actually culpable for the murder of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Jackson is based in California and was not present Wednesday.
Jackson said then that Proctor had an extensive history with the Albert family, which includes Boston Police Sgt. Brian Albert, one of the primary people in the defense’s third-party culpability defense.
The relationship was most clear with Brian Albert’s wife, Elizabeth Albert. Jackson said that Julie Albert had texted Proctor to offer a “thank you gift” for his handling of the investigation, an offer that Proctor not only didn’t decline and report to the DA but asked for another gift for his wife, Elizabeth. This was in addition to Proctor allegedly asking Julie Albert to babysit his kid.
These things, as well as others, Jackson said at the March 12 hearing, “would be enough to dismiss the indictments, but the cumulative effect is too much for the court to ignore.” He argued the indictments should be dismissed.
The MSP confirmed following that hearing that Proctor was under an internal investigation, but would not provide any details.