Karen Read fights wrongful death lawsuit

Livestream via NBC10 Boston.

Just months after her acquittal in the death of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, Karen Read is expected in a Massachusetts courtroom Monday to face a wrongful death lawsuit from O’Keefe’s family. 

The 2 p.m. hearing in Plymouth Superior Court marks an escalation for the civil case, which had largely been on hold while Read’s criminal case was pending. Monday’s hearing also reunites Read with attorneys Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little, who lead Read’s criminal defense. 

The 45-year-old was tried twice for murder after prosecutors alleged she drunkenly backed her SUV into O’Keefe while dropping him off at a house party in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. While her 2024 trial ended in a hung jury, jurors this spring found her not guilty of her most serious charges. In the end, she was convicted only of a drunk driving misdemeanor, for which she received a year of probation. 

Read has long maintained she was framed for killing O’Keefe, but the late Boston police officer’s family has sided with prosecutors. Their lawsuit, filed shortly after the 2024 mistrial, alleges that Read fled the scene after she hit O’Keefe with her car, leaving her boyfriend of two years to die in a blizzard.

The O’Keefes are also claiming emotional distress, alleging Read “knowingly and deliberately changed her story and fabricated a conspiracy knowing the same to be false.” Throughout her criminal case, Read and her lawyers argued she was the victim of a vast law enforcement conspiracy meant to protect the family and friends of the man who owned 34 Fairview Road at the time, a fellow Boston officer. 

Plaintiffs in the wrongful death suit include O’Keefe’s brother, Paul, his parents, and his niece, who lived with O’Keefe after she and her brother lost their parents just months apart. The lawsuit also names as defendants C.F. McCarthy’s and the Waterfall Bar & Grille, the two Canton bars where Read and O’Keefe drank before he died. 

While the civil case is still in its early stages, it could ultimately result in Read testifying under oath about O’Keefe’s death for the first time. Unlike in the two criminal trials, the burden of proof for the civil case is the much lighter preponderance of evidence standard, meaning the O’Keefes can meet their burden if they can convince a jury it’s more likely than not that Read was responsible. 

If they succeed, Read could be on the hook for monetary damages. 

Last month, Read asked a judge to toss part of the complaint, arguing that the family can’t “recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress based upon the occurrence of the alleged accident because they were not at the scene, nor did they witness the immediate consequences to [O’Keefe].” 

A lawyer for the O’Keefes fired back, saying the family “has suffered and continues to suffer immense emotional trauma from this wrongful death, which has been further intensified by the unyielding barrage of harassment and ridicule by Read and her supporters targeting the grieving family.”

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.