Karen Read wrongful death dispute: Criminal defense attorneys join civil fight

Lance Reynolds, Boston Herald on Aug 5, 2025

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BOSTON — Defense attorney Alan Jackson says the “band … is getting back together” as he and colleague Elizabeth Little will be defending Karen Read in a civil suit by the family of John O’Keefe.

Jackson also says he believes new information will be presented during the civil trial as the defense will be facing a new judge rather than Beverly Cannone, who oversaw both of Read’s murder trials and the attorney has accused of bias.

“I’ll be coming back to Boston,” Jackson told WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” Tuesday morning. “You haven’t seen the last of me yet.”

“The band is not just staying together, getting back together,” he added. “We’re intending on writing a few new chapters.”

The criminal trial concluded in June with a decisive win for the defense.

Jurors cleared Read, 45, of killing O’Keefe, her Boston Police officer boyfriend of about two years at the time he died in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022. The jury convicted her of just operating a motor vehicle under the influence.

The O’Keefe family is also targeting the Waterfall Bar & Grille and C.F. McCarthy’s, the two Canton bars that the couple visited hours before he died, in the wrongful death lawsuit.

Read’s civil defense team has been active in the aftermath of the criminal trial, recently demanding a wide range of documents involving her criminal case from state prosecutors to the Massachusetts State Police to federal agencies.

Jackson took a swipe at Cannone during his WEEI interview, saying she refused to put her “biases aside” in Read’s criminal case. He added that the judge blocked the defense from introducing evidence gathered from inside 34 Fairview Road in Canton.

That’s the property where prosecutors alleged Read plowed into O’Keefe with her SUV following a drunken argument, leaving him to die in a snowstorm. The defense countered that O’Keefe was beaten to death inside the home before his body was dragged to the front yard.

“The pain point that the plaintiffs are going to have in their civil suit is, this is a very different lawsuit,” Jackson said. “It’s not a criminal lawsuit, and it’s not being governed by Judge Beverly Cannone, who kept out so much of that information.”

“All of it was relevant,” he added. “This new lawsuit is probably a very good platform … for a lot of that information to be aired out and aired out completely.”

The civil case is being heard in Plymouth County Superior Court, a change from the criminal proceedings in Norfolk County Superior Court.

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