BOSTON (AP) — Karen Read is asking to postpone a wrongful death lawsuit initiated by the family of her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, until her related criminal trial is concluded.
The lawsuit, lodged last month by Paul O’Keefe on behalf of his family, accuses Read of causing the death of John O’Keefe. Additionally, it claims that several bars negligently continued to serve her alcohol despite obvious signs of intoxication. According to the lawsuit, one bar served Read seven drinks in approximately 90 minutes on the night of January 28, 2022, and after she took a drink from there to the second bar, she was served a shot and a mixed drink within an hour.
On Wednesday, Read’s legal team submitted a motion for delaying the lawsuit’s trial until after her criminal proceedings. She stands accused of colliding with O’Keefe using her SUV and subsequently abandoning him in the snow during a January 2022 storm. Her first trial concluded in July with a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous decision, and a second trial is scheduled to start on January 27.
Read’s attorneys argued that proceeding with the civil lawsuit while the criminal trial is ongoing would infringe on her Fifth Amendment rights, which protect against self-incrimination. They contended that this request for a stay is reasonable and won’t cause significant delays, as the wrongful death suit is unlikely to be resolved before August 2027.
However, Paul O’Keefe’s attorney, Marc Diller, countered that Read’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment is undermined by her previous public statements about the case and her involvement in an upcoming documentary. Diller remarked, “Ms. Read consistently and voluntarily disregards her Fifth Amendment privilege as she attempts to craft her own narrative and poison the jury pool for both her criminal and civil cases.” He suggested that her reliance on her rights appears more geared toward controlling the narrative than avoiding self-incrimination.
This wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts, names Read as well as the Waterfall Bar & Grill and C.F. McCarthy’s as defendants, seeking a jury trial. On Friday, an attorney representing Waterfall Bar & Grill submitted a response, denying the lawsuit’s claims.
In the criminal case, Read has pleaded not guilty to charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, in addition to leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Her initial trial ended in a mistrial after jurors indicated they were deadlocked, despite later clarifying that they had unanimously deemed her not guilty of the murder and leaving the scene charges.
Following their night out, Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, drove O’Keefe, a veteran of the Boston police force for 16 years, to the home of another officer in Canton. His body was discovered in the front yard, with an autopsy revealing that he had succumbed to hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
Read’s defense maintains that O’Keefe’s death resulted from actions inside the house and that she was unjustly made a scapegoat due to being an outsider. The lawsuit claims that Read and O’Keefe were involved in a dispute and asserts that she was aware of having hit him with her SUV prior to returning home. It alleges that several hours later, she awakened O’Keefe’s 14-year-old niece and stated that something had happened to O’Keefe, suggesting he may have been struck either by her vehicle or by a snowplow.
