The family of a Boston police officer has filed a wrongful death suit against the woman accused of killing him and two bars where the couple was drinking prior to his death.
The suit names Karen Read, 44, and the bars C.F. McCarthy’s and Waterfall Bar & Grille in the the death of John O’Keefe, WCVB reports. The family is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Read was charged with second degree murder, leaving the scene of an accident, and vehicular manslaughter in O’Keefe’s 2022 death, as CrimeOnline reported. Read was accused of dropping him off at a fellow police officer’s home, then hitting him with her vehicle and leaving him to die in a snow bank.
A Norfolk County judge declared a mistrial on July 1 and ordered a new trial after the jury said it could not reach a verdict.
But after that ruling, some jurors contacted both defense lawyers and prosecutors and told them the jury had reached unanimous verdicts on two of the charges: They found Read not guilty of murder and leaving the scene of an accident and were deadlocked only on the manslaughter charge.
The defense asked Judge Beverly Cannone, who did not poll the jury on July to find out how they had voted, to dismiss those two charges. Last week, she denied the defense request.
Read’s attorneys said they plan to appeal the ruling.
Read’s defense argued during trial that O’Keefe died after he was beaten up in the basement of his friend’s home and bitten by a dog, a story O’Keefe’s family called an “outrageously created … false narrative” in the lawsuit, filed on Monday, WCVB said.
The family says that Read “intended the reckless conduct that resulted in (John O’Keefe’s) injuries/death” and allege the bars “negligently served alcohol to an intoxicated person.”
“Read’s conduct was extreme and outrageous, beyond the bounds of decency and was utterly intolerable,” the lawsuit says.
The bars named in the lawsuit did not provide comment. Read’s retrial, unless her appeal is successful, is set to begin on January 27.
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[Featured image: Karen Read/LinkedIn and John O’Keefe/police handout]
