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Karen Read’s lawyers allege ‘suspicious contact’ between witnesses, law enforcement as evidence of a cover-up
Wednesday’s court date followed an explosive hearing last week, as well as the news that a lead investigator in Read's case is now under investigation himself.
Lawyers for two witnesses in the Karen Read murder case emphasized in court Wednesday that their clients are not the targets of a cryptic federal investigation into the high-profile case.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts have reportedly been looking into Read’s case for months, though details about the scope of the investigation remain largely unavailable to the public.
Read’s lawyers teased new evidence from the federal probe in a hearing last week, and Wednesday’s court date shed more light on the investigation.
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Read, 44, is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, on Jan. 29, 2022. Prosecutors say the Mansfield woman struck O’Keefe with her SUV and left him to die outside a fellow Boston officer’s home in Canton. Read’s lawyers, however, maintain that she’s the victim of a widespread cover-up and that O’Keefe was actually beaten inside the house.
The defense team has specifically targeted the family of Brian Albert, who owned the home where O’Keefe’s body was found. In court Wednesday, defense attorney David Yannetti requested access to phone records between Albert and others connected to the case.
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He alleged that after receiving a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury, Albert enlisted his brother Kevin, a Canton police officer, to reach out to Brian Higgins, a fellow witness who had stopped returning his calls. Higgins was reportedly inside Albert’s home the night O’Keefe died.
According to Yannetti, Brian Albert allegedly told the federal grand jury that Kevin Albert contacted Higgins and said, “Look, you went off the grid and Brian doesn’t understand. You haven’t called him, you haven’t checked in on him since these subpoenas go out. Everyone got a subpoena but you.”
“Your honor, there’s only one way to interpret that,” Yannetti said. “Brian Albert was panicked that … Brian Higgins had flipped on him. Brian Albert enlists his Canton police officer brother to contact Higgins to try and find out if that was the case.”
Yannetti also alluded to an ongoing witness intimidation case against Turtleboy blogger Aidan Kearney, who’s accused of harassing witnesses in Read’s case.
“My goodness, with all the allegations of witness intimidation thrown around by this DA’s office and special prosecutors they appoint, why has Kevin Albert never been investigated for witness intimidation?” Yannetti asked. “And for that matter, why has Brian Albert never been investigated?”
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He asserted that the records the defense team is seeking “tend to show a cover-up,” as well as a conspiracy among officials.
Defense claims ‘largely inaccurate,’ prosecutor says
However, Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally contended that the facts included in the defense team’s motion “are largely inaccurate, injected with hyperbole, injected with conjecture.”
“Even assuming that everything contained within counsel’s motion was true and accurate, the defendant’s motion in this specific instance fails on two grounds,” Lally said. First, the time period for the requested materials is too broad at almost a year, and second, the request boils down to a “fishing expedition,” he argued.
Yet Greg Henning, a lawyer for Brian Albert, said his client does not object to turning over the materials the defense has requested.
“Brian Albert does not have anything to hide,” he said.
Further, Henning said he reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, spoke with the lead prosecutor on the case, and received permission to disclose that Brian Albert, his wife, and their children are not targets of the federal investigation.
Higgins’s attorney, William Connolly, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office has also confirmed Higgins is not a target for the probe.
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“Brian Higgins has not participated in any kind of a cover-up or conspiracy to cover up the criminal activity of others,” Connolly said, citing his client’s decorated career in public safety and military service in Iraq. “Participating in a cover-up is contrary to who he is as a human being and a professional.”
He said Higgins opposed the defense request for records due to privacy concerns, not because he has something to hide.
Kevin Albert’s attorney, Peter Pasciucco, raised similar privacy concerns and denied his client’s involvement in a cover-up.
“Any insinuation that he participated in a conspiracy or cover-up is simply untrue,” Pasciucco said. He also noted that Kevin Albert is not a witness in the case and did not testify before a grand jury.
“His involvement is essentially zero,” Pasciucco said.
Former Canton police chief also under scrutiny
Yannetti submitted another request seeking phone records between Brian Albert, Higgins, and then-Canton Police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz. He pointed specifically to phone calls between Albert and Higgins on the morning of Jan. 29, 2022 — several hours before O’Keefe’s body was found on Albert’s lawn.
He alleged that while testifying before a federal grand jury, Higgins denied making any phone calls when he got home from Albert’s house. But according to Yannetti, a federal prosecutor confronted Higgins with phone records that revealed Albert called Higgins at 2:22 a.m., and that Higgins called Albert back soon after. Yannetti cast doubt on Higgins’ alleged explanation that the call was a “butt dial.”
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Yannetti also alleged Higgins’s phone records revealed contact with Berkowitz shortly after O’Keefe’s body was found.
Connolly pointed out that Higgins met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for a voluntary interview before he testified before the grand jury, “and at that interview, he volunteered to the U.S. Attorney’s Office that that morning, he spoke to both Albert and Berkowitz.”
Still, the requested records show “suspicious contact between parties we allege to be in a conspiracy,” Yannetti told Judge Beverly Cannone, who did not rule on the motions Wednesday.
“In a case where we are alleging as part of our defense that there is a third-party culprit, and at least some people are involved in a conspiracy to cover up the guilt of that third-party culprit or culprits, contact between co-conspirators could not be more relevant,” Yannetti argued.
Read’s lawyers have previously targeted Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, alleging that Proctor — a lead investigator on the case — had undisclosed ties to the Albert family. Last week, State Police confirmed an internal affairs investigation into Proctor, though the agency did not say whether the investigation is linked to Read’s case. An attorney for Proctor said the trooper “remains steadfast in the integrity of the work he performed investigating the death of Mr. John O’Keefe.”
Read’s next court date is scheduled for March 26.
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