Karen Read case drama builds
The complex saga surrounding the Karen Read murder case entered unchartered waters when the defense argued communications from the U.S. Attorney’s office regarding the case be brought out into the light and the DA demanded a set of notes from a Boston scribe.
There was no representative from the U.S. Attorney’s office in court yesterday before Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone, but federal prosecutors in an earlier letter did not oppose a defense motion to release a number of communications related to the case. The release of the documents was opposed by the Norfolk DA’s office.
The second motion was the prosecution’s motion to compel all recordings and notes from a Boston Magazine reporter for a story on Karen Read.
Cannone took the arguments under advisement but did not make any rulings during the hearing.
Read, of Mansfield, is a financial analyst and former adjunct professor in business at Bentley University. She is charged with the murder of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe — her boyfriend of two years at the time — by allegedly striking him with her SUV outside a Canton home in late January 2022.
First argued a motion filed by Norfolk prosecutors to keep eight letters indicating an investigation into the Norfolk District Attorney’s office under seal. Judge Cannone took a few minute break in the proceedings to review the letters and decide what parts of them Read defense attorney David Yannetti could reference when arguing why they should be kept public.
“The commonwealth wants to keep those letters hidden because the letters contain content that will embarrass District Attorney (Michael) Morrissey and his office,” Yannetti said.
A letter to Cannone dated Jan. 12 authored by Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Deitch for Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy states, “We appreciate the opportunity to be heard on this issue. Having reviewed all of the materials referenced above, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts do not object to public disclosure of the correspondence at issue in the pending motion.”
Yannetti, who appeared via Zoom with Read in the hybrid in-person and online hearing, also said that the U.S. Attorney’s office disclosed in a conference call Wednesday “that not only is there an investigation in this case but that it is ongoing.”
He said toward the close of the hour-long hearing that additional information on the investigation is promised to be revealed within weeks and he needs that full information to effectively argue for sanctions against Morrissey at the next hearing on Feb. 15, during which he will also argue a motion to dismiss the case.
“The genie can not be put back into the bottle,” Yannetti said. “Those letters are something we will use as evidence for motions.”
Lead prosecutor Adam Lally declined to rebut Yannetti’s arguments.
Next up was the motion to compel Boston Magazine reporter Gretchen Voss’ notes and recordings from her interviews with defendant Karen Read for her piece last year, “The Karen Read Case in Canton: The Killing That Tore a Town Apart.”
Attorney Robert Bertsche was on hand for Metro Corp, the company that owns Boston Magazine, to argue that while the publication has no qualms about providing audio of the two on-the-record interviews with Read, the third interview was another matter.
That third interview, he said in his argument and in filed opposition documents, was conducted at Read’s home and was completely off-the-record, with none of that material making its way into the magazine’s lengthy piece.
He called the motion a “fishing expedition,” adding, “Their argument for more is that the article is such a goldmine that there must be more.”
He added that making a reporter hand over source notes like that would have a chilling effect on journalists doing their job. He also said that Voss’ safety is also at stake because she has experienced harassment and threats to her and her family the likes of which she had never experienced in her 25 years working in news and that handing over her notes could make it worse.
Prosecutor Lally said that while such a “chilling effect” has been argued in the federal cases Bertsche cited in his arguments, Massachusetts has no such reporter privilege protections.