The family of a Boston police officer filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman whose murder trial in the officer’s death ended with a hung jury in July.

The civil suit, filed in Plymouth County Superior Court by relatives of John O’Keefe, also accuses two bars of wrongful death, alleging they served Read alcohol when she was already intoxicated on the night of Jan. 28, 2022.  

The suit accuses Read, 44, of plowing into O’Keefe, 46, with her Lexus SUV after having had a series of drinks at C.F. McCarthy’s and Waterfall Bar & Grille.

Read claimed innocence at her criminal trial. Her defense team alleged that law enforcement officers framed her. Read could not be reached for comment Monday. The lawyer in her criminal case did not respond to a request for comment. 

A person who answered the phone at C.F. McCarthy’s on Monday would not comment on the lawsuit. No one could be reached at Waterfall Bar & Grille.

The suit alleges that Read left her boyfriend for dead outside the home of a former Boston police officer in Canton, south of Boston.

The suit, which does not specify damages, also accuses Read and the two bars of negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Prosecutors had alleged that Read mowed O’Keefe down amid a deteriorating relationship. She was charged with second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision causing death.

On July 1, after five days of deliberations, a judge declared a mistrial when jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. 

According to Read’s lawyers, four jurors have come forward and said the entire panel reached not guilty verdicts on two charges: second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a collision.

The jury remained deadlocked on the remaining manslaughter charge, according to the lawyers. Citing that evidence, the lawyers asked the judge in the case to dismiss the charges, but she declined.

Prosecutors vowed to retry the case. A new trial is scheduled for Jan. 27.

The O’Keefe family lawsuit accuses one of the bars, C.F. McCarthy’s, of serving Read seven drinks over roughly 1½ hours on the night of Jan. 28. The second bar, Waterfall Bar & Grille, served Read a shot and a mixed drink shortly afterward, the lawsuit alleges.

After she left the second bar around midnight on Jan. 29, the suit alleges, Read drove O’Keefe to the Canton house, where the other Boston officer was having a gathering.

O’Keefe and Read had been arguing, the suit alleges, when O’Keefe got out of the vehicle and Read fatally struck him.

In her criminal trial, Read’s lawyers said she watched O’Keefe enter the Canton house after she dropped him off. Hours later, she discovered that he had never come home and raced back to the house, where she found his body on the morning of Jan. 29.

The lawyers have alleged that O’Keefe was most likely beaten inside the home and left outside in the snow.

An exonerated Varsity Blues dad is fighting back.

John Wilson has just won a court battle with Netflix. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court refused to dismiss his defamation suit against the video streaming giant.

The fair report privilege is at play, with Netflix claiming it is protected by the legal precedent in airing the 2021 documentary “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.”

A single justice of the SJC wrote the argument to drop the case wasn’t strong enough.

“The motion to dismiss is DENIED,” the ruling states, adding that the arguments to toss are too weak at this “stage” in the blockbuster lawsuit.

“I applaud the Massachusetts Superior Court. This decision marks a turning point in how we view media responsibility, especially Big Media,” said William Charles Tanenbaum, lead attorney for the Wilsons. “The court has made it clear that Netflix, and, by extension, other Big Media companies, cannot simply insulate themselves by claiming the fair report privilege when they knowingly misrepresent facts and cause harm to individuals.”

Netflix directed all comments to corporate contacts who could not immediately be reached for comment.

Wilson, of Lynnfield, and his son, Johnny, filed the complaint in Barnstable Superior Court alleging the entertainment company and its producers defamed them in the documentary.

Federal prosecutors alleged and convicted Wilson on a charge that he paid more than $1.2 million to secure his children’s admissions to elite universities — Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and Stanford University — as athletic recruits.

But the Wilsons and Tanenbaum say none of Netflix’s depictions of the family are accurate and that the company “rushed” the production of the documentary, “poisoning public opinion and the jury pool months before Mr. Wilson’s trial even began.”

Wilson in February 2022 was sentenced in federal court in Boston to 15 months in prison — the largest penalty leveled in the case that swept up at least 50 defendants, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and former “Full House” star Lori Laughlin.

Last May, the First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Wilson’s admissions scam conviction. Months later, the prison sentencing was replaced by a year of probation involving a single tax-related charge that Wilson faced.

Wilson’s legal team is alleged to have provided Netflix a 450-plus page “written warning”  before the documentary’s publication outlining the concerns the family had about the film, suggesting the company avoid “guilt-by-association or including any falsehoods.”

“Netflix willingly chose to group my highly qualified children and me into a scandal involving celebrities who, unlike me, pled guilty and acknowledged their roles in shameful actions like photoshopping images of fake athletes, cheating on tests and making bribe payments to coaches,” Wilson said in a statement.

His son, according to court papers, was both an excellent student and water polo player who earned his place at USC legitimately.

“Viewers could reasonably interpret” the documentary suggested otherwise. This case continues.

A 959-square-foot condominium built in 2008 has changed hands. The property located at 2 Battery Wharf in Boston was sold on Aug. 6, 2024, for $3,325,000, or $3,467 per square foot. This condominium has one bedroom and two baths. The home’s outer structure has a flat roof frame. The property is equipped with forced air heating and a cooling system. Additionally, the home comes with a three-car garage, allowing for convenient vehicle storage and additional storage space. The property is situated on a lot spanning 959 square feet.

Additional units have recently been sold nearby:

• A 803-square-foot unit at 357 Commercial Street in Boston sold in May 2023, for $570,000, a price per square foot of $710. The unit has 1 bedroom 1 bathroom.
• In May 2024, a 700-square-foot unit on Commercial Street in Boston sold for $575,000, a price per square foot of $821. The unit has 1 bedroom 1 bathroom.
• On Commercial Street, Boston, in August 2024, a 741-square-foot unit was sold for $575,000, a price per square foot of $776. The unit has 1 bedroom 1 bathroom.

Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News