Karen Read is back in a courtroom fight—this time as the plaintiff. The Massachusetts woman, acquitted last year in the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe, has filed an 87-page lawsuit accusing the town of Canton and the Massachusetts State Police of a “culture of bias and corruption” and a botched investigation into O’Keefe’s 2022 death, reports Fox News. He and Read were in a relationship at the time. “The days of hiding behind badges and promotions while peddling vile bigotry are over,” says Read’s defense team in a statement, per WCVB. “The truth is coming.”
The suit, filed in Bristol Superior Court, highlights crude, expletive-filled text exchanges between former state trooper Michael Proctor, the case’s lead investigator, and then-Canton Sgt. Sean Goode. In those messages, the two allegedly used anti-Semitic and misogynistic slurs to describe Read. Proctor was fired in 2025 after his texts surfaced at trial, and Goode resigned from the Canton force last week following a misconduct probe. Read’s lawyers argue the men were not outliers but products of “institutional rot” within both agencies.
Read, who still faces a wrongful death suit from O’Keefe’s family, has separately filed a federal civil rights case against several witnesses who testified against her, while four witnesses argue in a suit of their own that Read defamed them by suggesting they were responsible for O’Keefe’s death.
