Prosecutors in the Karen Read case want jurors to hear more about an incident on a 2021 New Year’s trip to Aruba where Read accused her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, of cheating on her, during her trial.
The request comes despite prosecutors agreeing not to bring up testimony about the incident during their case at a prior pre-trial hearing. In a filing, special prosecutor Hank Brennan said the shift in strategy came from Read’s defense “opening the door” for such testimony.
The defense did so, Brennan writes, when they had Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik read a series of “flirtatious” text messages between Read and Brian Higgins, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Explosives and Firearms. In the text exchange, Read claims O’Keefe was “all over [a] friend’s sister in the lobby of our hotel” and accused him of hooking up with another girl in Aruba.
“The jury should be permitted to hear from the witnesses of this ‘Aruba incident’ who will rebut the characterizations made by the defendant to Brian Higgins,” the filing reads.
Prosecutors say they will elicit testimony about the incident from four witnesses: Erin O’Keefe, John O’Keefe’s sister-in-law; Marietta Sullivan, Laura Sullivan, and John O’Keefe’s niece. The Sullivans were on the Aruba trip with Read and John O’Keefe. All four testified at Read’s first trial.
Judge Beverly Cannone has not ruled on the motion. Read’s defense has not replied to the filing, and it has not been argued in open court.
Read’s retrial is off on Tuesday due to “unavoidable circumstances.”
Before the trial, Read’s defense moved to keep evidence of the trip out, claiming it was “a completely irrelevant verbal argument” between Read and Marietta Sullivan.
In a filing, her lawyers claimed the only purpose of the evidence was to “assassinate Ms. Read’s character in the eyes of the jury.”
“The Commonwealth has no reliable evidence to suggest that the Aruba incident had anything whatsoever to do with John O’Keefe’s death a full month later on January 29, 2022, or that this remote and isolated incident was even a point of contention in Ms. Read and Mr. O’Keefe’s relationship after that trip,” the motion reads.
