The defense team in the high-profile Karen Read case has requested any communications that Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey made from his personal phone and email accounts involving the case, which is headed for a retrial.
It was one of several filings made by the defense Friday, along with a response to the prosecution’s request to have evidence from Read’s SUV re-tested because a new expert said the data previously taken from the Lexus was incomplete, and that more data may be recoverable. The defense now says that the expert misunderstood the data, but is willing to have the data retested anyway.
Morrissey’s office has been embroiled in controversy over the claims that Read was framed in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe. The prosecution has accused Read of hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow in front of a home in Canton, Massachusetts, in January 2022. The defense argues Read is the victim of an elaborate coverup.
Read is facing charges of second-degree murder, knowingly leaving the scene of an accident, and involuntary manslaughter, though she’s appealed to have two of the charges dropped.
Read’s new trial is currently set to begin on Jan. 27, 2025, though both sides have requested it be pushed back until April.
Karen Read defense’s request for Morrissey emails, texts
The new request for Morrissey’s personal communications, which refers to a claim made by an attorney for Aidan Kearney, the blogger known as Turtleboy, that Morrissey used his personal email account in communications concerning official matters, comes days after the prosecution moved for records from interviews read did last year with Boston Magazine
The defense now argues that the district attorney has been using personal accounts to discuss Read’s case in an official capacity, meaning that information should be released to them as part of the discovery process.
They pointed to an email Morrissey allegedly sent a judge in September of last year, a day after a witness in the Read case applied for a harassment prevention order against Kearney — which was denied.
That email, lawyers say, came from Morrissey’s personal iCloud email account instead of his state email address.
Morrissey raised concerns in the email about a Stoughton District Court employee sharing a copy of an affidavit with Kearney, according to the letter from attorney Mark Bederow, who represents the blogger.
A court spokesperson said that court employee was placed on paid administrative leave last October and terminated the following month, but declined to comment on the reason.
Read’s defense is arguing that Morrissey’s contact with Trial Court Justices “is extremely concerning and raises concerns about the integrity of this prosecution.”
Asked for comment on the filings, Morrissey’s office said any response will be made in court, citing the pending case.
Data from Karen Read’s SUV
In the the defense’s response about re-testing information from her Lexus, the alleged murder weapon in the case, they claim that the commonwealth’s expert fundamentally misunderstood the difference between the terms megabit and megabyte — two different sizes of storage capacity of computer chips — from Read’s vehicle.
The misunderstanding of the “basic digital forensics concept” is important, the defense says, because the commonwealth’s expert was arguing that the defense expert’s extraction of data from the chips was incomplete, based on the assumed storage size. The defense expert extracted 8 megabytes of data from the chips, which the commonwealth had argued was not the full amount. But the defense says there is easy math involved – 64 megabits is equal to 8 megabytes. If there was confusion between the two terms, the storage amounts would reconcile.
Moreover, such a mistake calls into question what other mistakes could occur during testing, some of which would be destructive to the evidence, they said. But they agreed that new software could help pull more information from the vehicle.
So the defense requested their forensics expert be present during any future testing, and be given the power to stop any testing if there were concerns about its accuracy or necessity.