Crime
The lawsuit, filed by Read against investigators, the McCabes, the Alberts, and Brian Higgins, was filed in federal court Tuesday.
Karen Read’s civil lawsuit filed against the witnesses who testified during her murder trial, including the Alberts and the McCabes, has been moved from state court to federal court, records show.
The lawsuit, originally filed in Bristol Superior Court Nov. 17, alleges the investigators allowed the Alberts, McCabes, and Higgins to “direct the investigation away from themselves, and towards Ms. Read” and detailed their alleged actions to cover-up the murder and frame Read.
Read, who is facing a wrongful death suit connected to the 2022 death of her boyfriend Boston officer John O’Keefe, filed a lawsuit against State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik, former Trooper Michael Proctor, and Lt. Brian Tully, all in their personal capacity.
Brian and Nicole Albert, Jennifer and Matthew McCabe, and Brian Higgins — witnesses who went out drinking with Read and O’Keefe the night he died — are also named as defendants.
James Tuxbury, the lawyer representing the McCabes, the Alberts, and Higgins filed a notice of removal to move the case to the US District Court of Massachusetts, according to court records. The case was filed Tuesday in federal court, according to the new docket.
“The case is a vengeful abuse of the judicial process,” the notice of removal filed by Tuxbury in federal court said. While represented by others, Bukhenik, Proctor, and Tully all consented to the move of venue, Tuxbury wrote. He argued for the move due to the federal civil rights claim that Read’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Tuxbury referred to the motion, which calls the lawsuit Read’s “ongoing and malicious attempt to evade responsibility for the death of John O’Keefe by smearing and defaming witnesses who participated in the prosecution of her.”
Read was charged with second degree murder after O’Keefe was found dead in the snow outside the Albert’s Canton home in January 2022. Prosecutors argued that Read struck O’Keefe in a drunken rage with her SUV while dropping him off at an afterparty after the pair had spent the night drinking with friends.
Her first trial ended in a hung jury, but after she was tried again, she was found not guilty of murder and convicted only of drunk driving — a misdemeanor for which she received a year of probation. Prosecutors spent more than $1.4 million retrying the case earlier this year.
Damon Seligson, Read’s lead attorney for her civil matters, called the defense’s move to federal court a “procedural maneuver” in a statement.
“Karen Read and her legal team are confident that her claims will receive the fair and fulsome attention they deserve in any federal or state court,” Seligson told Boston.com. “We will continue to seek justice, and are prepared to do so in as many venues as necessary.”
Lawsuit: Investigators shielded the Alberts, McCabes, and Higgins while they orchestrated a cover-up
The complaint accuses the investigators of intentionally shielding the other defendants, tampering and planting the taillight material evidence, and sharing information with the Alberts through his personal phone and through his sister’s close friend Julie Albert, Brian Albert’s sister-in-law.
“Proctor and his colleagues did not search the (Albert’s house) for blood evidence resulting from the gash to the back of Mr. O’Keefe’s head, or for fingerprints, or for DNA evidence,” the complaint alleges. “At Proctor’s direction, the House was never processed by a criminalist or even photographed. No member of the MSP, including Proctor, set foot inside 34 Fairview for nearly a week.”
The complaint claims that O’Keefe entered the Alberts house the night of his death, and Read waited for a “period of time” before assuming he intended to stay. While there, O’Keefe was involved in a physical altercation, attacked by the family’s German shepherd, and suffered a head wound after falling backward and hitting a ridged surface, the lawsuit claims.
Higgins allegedly left the house and drove to the Canton Police Department in the middle of the night, while he and Brian Albert appeared to call each other multiple times “to coordinate their stories,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit also claims Jennifer McCabe’s infamous “hos long to die in cold” Google search took place at 2:27 a.m.
“The plan was devised to make it appear that Mr. O’Keefe had been struck by Ms. Read’s vehicle and then died as a result of exposure to the cold,” the lawsuit said. “The Commonwealth still has not sought or provided justice — not to the O’Keefe family, not to the community at large, and certainly not to Ms. Read.”
Previously, lawyers for the McCabes, Alberts, and Higgins said they would consider counterclaims against both Read and Turtleboy blogger Aidan Kearney “for defamation and other torts that they have committed, individually and in concert.”
Timothy Burke, who is representing Tully, did not return a request for comment Wednesday evening.
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