Massachusetts
Karen Read prosecutors face ‘uphill battle’ in Massachusetts case’s retrial, expert says
The lawyer who defended the notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger will next week deliver the prosecution’s opening statements in the retrial of Karen Read.
Read is a financial analyst from Mansfield, Massachusetts, who is accused of striking her police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe with her car and leaving him to die in the snow.
Her case, recently explored in a Max docuseries, A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read, is seemingly made for TV: it will be broadcast, gavel-to-gavel, from Norfolk superior court in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Read’s first trial ended with deadlocked jury in July last year. Now Hank Brennan, special prosecutor for the commonwealth, will make the state’s case against Read.
The 45-year-old has pleaded not guilty to charges, including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision.
Prosecutors have claimed that, after a night out drinking, Read dropped O’Keefe off at a house party just after midnight on 29 January 2022 and intentionally struck him as she made a three-point turn in her Lexus SUV outside a fellow police officer’s home.
Read’s lawyers claim she was framed, that she saw O’Keefe enter the home where he was allegedly fatally beaten and possibly attacked by a German shepherd before his body was placed on the front lawn.
Brennan has said the defense’s suggestions that someone other than Read is responsible for O’Keefe’s death is a tactic meant to confuse the jury.
“We should not engage in a process where we allow witnesses to be asked questions with no ability of the defense to follow up on those questions with actual proof,” he recently said.
Brennan has also challenged Read’s attorney-client privilege, arguing that she sacrificed her right by discussing her conversations with her lawyers in interviews. He has since sought access to private conversations between Read and Aidan Kearney, the blogger known as Turtleboy – who was instrumental in bringing the case into the wider public realm. Just this week, Kearney said he would invoke his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination if he were called to testify.
For her part, Read has accused Brennan of being disingenuous about his desire for her to receive a fair trial.
“It has evolved from wanting ME to get a fair trial to ‘the COMMONWEALTH deserves a fair trial,’ which is not a right I’ve ever heard of. But it doesn’t matter – I shouldn’t even be on trial,” Read told Vanity Fair.
Since the mistrial, Read’s celebrity has only grown. A defense fund for her has soared beyond $845,000, and her supporters will surely pack into the courtroom – again – when the case gets underway before Judge Beverly J Cannone, who also oversaw the first trial.
Joining Cannone will be Michael Proctor, lead state police investigator, who was dismissed last month after a months-long suspension following his disastrous testimony in the first trial. In that trial, he read texts about Read he’d sent to friends and co-workers describing her as “babe” and “a whack job cunt”.
“We’re gonna lock this whack job up,” Proctor said in another text.
The defense will probably, as it did in the first trial, try to use the texts to show that the investigation was biased from the outset and focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider”.
They are expected to call witnesses who will describe how Read and O’Keefe’s relationship had turned bitter before O’Keefe’s death.
“It’s still going to be an uphill battle for the commonwealth because there is some level of incoherence in the forensic evidence – the body just doesn’t look like a body that was only struck by a car,” Rosanna Cavallaro, a professor of law at Suffolk University in Boston who has commented widely on the case, told the Guardian.
“Whatever the alternative narrative is may not be coherent either, but it doesn’t need to be. There just needs to be reasonable doubt. The defense doesn’t need to present an airtight story, it just needs to punch holes in the state’s story.”
Cavallaro notes that the state is obliged to call Proctor because he directed the investigation at the outset: “They have a dilemma. Either call him and stick their head right in it, or they are evasive and the evasiveness comes back to bite them.”
This time around, Read has ramped up and expanded her legal team, adding nine law students who will act as clerks. To fund her defense, she has invested a whopping seven figures – relying in part on donations but also liquidating her retirement funds and selling her house.
For the prosecution’s part, its selection of Brennan as a special prosecutor could turn the trial into more of a performance than a rerun.
Brennan was responsible for “one of the most riveting days” of the 2013 Bulger trial, according to the New York Times, when he cross-examined Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, the mobster’s former crime partner, who had been involved in the killing of his stepdaughter Deborah Hussey. Brennan caught Flemmi off guard with his first question: “Did she call you Daddy?”
Given that Read is seeking an all-out acquittal, the state may be making an error in pursuing the top charge when jurors rejected it at the first trial.
Offering Read a deal on manslaughter and dropping the murder charge might have resolved the matter, Cavallaro said. “It may be that Read is thinking that it will now be impossible for prosecutors to convince a jury on any of the level of charges in the indictment.”
The Farm Bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives April 30 could undermine a Massachusetts law aimed at preventing animal cruelty.
The sweeping agricultural bill includes a section called the “Save Our Bacon Act,” which prohibits state and local governments from having farm animal welfare protections that extend to products originating in other states.
The measure specifically targets Massachusetts and California state laws that prohibit certain farm animals from being held in extreme confinement.
Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both Democrats, released a statement opposing the inclusion of the measure in the Farm Bill.
“This is a highly controversial and poisonous policy that ignores the will of the people. These state laws were overwhelmingly supported by a popular vote — they shouldn’t be overridden because of big-dollar lobbying,” the senators said in their statement. “We have significant concerns about the House-passed Farm Bill, including this overreaching and harmful provision that should not be in the Farm Bill and needs to be removed.”
What is Massachusetts’s Question 3?
In 2016, Massachusetts voters passed Question 3, or an Act to Prevent Cruelty to Farm Animals, with 78% of the vote.
The measure banned the sale of eggs, veal or pork from animals that were “confined in a cruel manner.” It eliminated enclosures that prevented an animal from lying down, standing up, fully extending their limbs or turning around freely.
All of these products sold in Massachusetts must be compliant, regardless of whether the animals were raised on farms in or outside Massachusetts. Therefore, out-of-state farms must comply with Question 3 in order to sell their products in Massachusetts.
Town Line cares for 50 cows, reserving some each year for meat to sell at its farm store.
The law is similar to California’s Proposition 12, which also lays out specific freedom of movement and minimum floor space requirements for how veal calves, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens are kept. It also doesn’t allow the sale of any products from animals confined in ways that don’t meet their standards, including those produced in other states.
What is the Save Our Bacon Act?
The Save Our Bacon Act seeks to block California’s and Massachusetts’s laws on out-of-state producers by saying that no state “may enact or enforce, directly or indirectly, a condition or standard on the production of covered livestock other than for covered livestock physically raised in such State or subdivision.”
The legislation would apply to any domestic animal raised for the purpose of human consumption or milk production, but not animals raised primarily for egg production.
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, originally introduced the Save Our Bacon Act in July 2025.
“California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3 pose a major threat to family farms and food security — both in Iowa and across the country,” she said in a press release at the time. “The Save Our Bacon Act reaffirms livestock producers’ right to sell their products across state lines, without interference from arbitrary mandates.”
The act was added as a section in the Farm Bill, which was then passed by the House on a vote of 224-200. The bill next heads to the Senate, where its fate is unclear as lawmakers both across and within party lines have butted heads on several provisions.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Farm Bill provision threatens Massachusetts animal welfare rules
Fire broke out at an apartment building in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, on Monday afternoon, sending a column of smoke high into the air.
NBC affiliate WJAR-TV reports the smoke was visible from miles away from the building on Juniper Road.
More details were not immediately available.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Life Care Center of Raynham has received a deficiency‑free inspection result from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, a distinction awarded to a small share of the state’s licensed nursing homes, according to a community announcement.
The inspection was conducted as part of the state’s routine, unannounced nursing home survey process overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. These comprehensive, multi‑day inspections evaluate multiple aspects of facility operations, including staffing levels, quality of care, medication management, cleanliness, food service and resident rights.
State survey records show that Life Care Center of Raynham met required standards during its most recent standard survey, with no deficiencies cited, based on publicly available state data.
The announcement states that fewer than 8% of Massachusetts nursing homes achieve deficiency‑free survey results. That figure could not be independently verified through state or federal data and is attributed to the announcement.
In addition to the state survey outcome, the facility is listed as a five‑star provider for quality measures on the federal Medicare Care Compare website. The five‑star quality measure rating reflects above‑average performance compared with other nursing homes nationwide, according to federal rating methodology.
Officials said the inspection results reflect ongoing compliance with state and federal standards designed to protect resident health and safety. According to the announcement, the outcome is attributed to staff performance and internal quality practices.
This story was created by Dave DeMille, ddemille@gannett.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.
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