Crime
Read’s attorneys went on the attack Tuesday, defending their handling of crash reconstructionists who testified for the defense during last year’s trial.
Karen Read’s lawyers admitted Tuesday to paying nearly $24,000 to two expert witnesses who testified during her first trial, though they denied concealing a financial arrangement with the experts and claimed the invoice “came out of the blue” following July’s mistrial.
The revelations came as Read’s attorneys disputed bombshell allegations about their correspondence with crash reconstructionists from ARCCA Inc., an engineering consulting firm initially hired by federal authorities to look into Read’s case.
Defense attorney Robert Alessi was up at bat for Read’s team, moving through the chronology in a meticulous — and at times laborious — manner. He defended the defense team’s handling of the ARCCA witnesses, arguing that the record made clear the attorneys had operated above board.
“My hope is that the facts will speak for themselves,” Alessi said.
Tuesday’s court proceedings marked the continuation of a pretrial hearing that began last week. Judge Beverly Cannone abruptly halted the hearing after special prosecutor Hank Brennan alleged the defense might have misrepresented its relationship with the ARCCA experts — news Cannone said caused her “grave concern.” Brennan originally said the information he cited had come from the federal government, though he later corrected himself to say the materials were from the defense.
Speaking in court last week, he suggested Read’s lawyers had a closer relationship with the ARCCA experts than they previously let on, their correspondence including “an outline of questions and answers for direct examination” and a $23,925 bill from ARCCA to the defense. While it’s not uncommon for lawyers to pay their expert witnesses, jurors in Read’s first trial were led to believe the ARCCA experts were working independently and hadn’t been paid by Read’s team.
“The defense in the first trial attempted [to] — and successfully did — portray ARCCA witnesses as wholly independent, presented themselves as oblivious to the nuances of ARCCA, left the impression that there was no compensation, no bias, no collaboration,” Brennan alleged Tuesday.
Who are the ARCCA experts?
Read, 44, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. She’s due to stand trial again in April after her first trial ended with a hung jury last July.
Prosecutors allege Read backed her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at a home in Canton after a night of bar-hopping in January 2022. Her lawyers maintain she was framed, floating an alternate theory that O’Keefe was attacked after entering the home, which was owned at the time by a fellow Boston officer.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office hired ARCCA as part of a federal probe into the state’s handling of the case. Two of the company’s experts, Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, took the stand during Read’s first trial and testified that O’Keefe’s fatal head injuries weren’t consistent with getting hit by a car and that damage to Read’s SUV was inconsistent with striking O’Keefe.
Alessi repeatedly emphasized the ARCCA experts’ opinions did not change after they issued their report last year.
“The findings in … that report were set in cement in February of 2024,” he asserted. “What do I mean, ‘set in cement’? It means they were never changed, nor could they be changed.”
However, Brennan suggested there was more to the story.
“When you read the report, clearly the representations made about that report were extended at trial,” he alleged. “And the question’s going to be, why? Why did they improve?”
Brennan is seeking to bar the ARCCA experts from testifying during Read’s retrial, arguing the defense can’t meet its discovery obligations. He also alleged a “murky relationship” exists between the defense and the U.S. Attorney’s Office “relative to these ARCCA witnesses.”
– Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool
When did Read’s team pay ARCCA?
Alessi maintained the defense had no financial arrangement with ARCCA when Wolfe and Rentschler participated in voir dire questioning June 18, nor when they testified June 24. He said the defense paid the company’s invoice in late July, only after the trial had concluded and after receiving the green light from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Brennan previously alleged the defense team’s early correspondence with ARCCA included discussion of a retainer. Alessi acknowledged as much, pointing to a March 20, 2024, email defense attorney Alan Jackson sent Wolfe. However, he said Wolfe followed up with Jackson days later to say the U.S. Attorney’s Office had instructed them to pause communications.
That pause continued through the start of the trial, according to Alessi, who noted defense attorney David Yannetti did not mention ARCCA or its report in his opening statement because Read’s lawyers weren’t sure the company’s experts would testify.
“The defense position is that there was absolutely no meeting of the minds that ARCCA was going to be compensated by the defense,” Alessi said. “It wouldn’t have been a surprise if that would have been demanded of the defense, but those were paused. Those discussions were paused.”
Alessi alleged ARCCA’s bill “came out of the blue” when Read’s lawyers received the invoice July 12. He said the defense sent ARCCA a check on July 25.
Still, Brennan noted the invoice included expenses from early May — weeks before Wolfe testified before a jury that the defense hadn’t paid ARCCA.
“It’s hard to believe these witnesses would put forward money and expenses and travel without some understanding that they were going to get paid,” Brennan added.
Alessi noted ARCCA had historically been paid by federal authorities for their work on the case, arguing the company’s expectations of payment and the defense team’s lack of a financial arrangement aren’t mutually exclusive.
Brennan’s ‘misspeak’ under scrutiny
Alessi also questioned why Brennan previously said the lawyers’ correspondence with ARCCA had been turned over by the federal government, when the materials had actually come from the defense.
“Was it an honest mistake?” he asked. “I think truth and justice on these topics, since we’re being so exacting — and appropriately so — we should have an answer to that question.”
Brennan acknowledged he misspoke last week and said he believed the documents were provided by federal authorities when he made his remarks.
“I did misspeak. I corrected it,” Brennan admitted. “But it is not the source of that information, it is the substance of that information which is critical and relevant. It is that information that should have been known to the court, the commonwealth, and the jury at the first trial, and it is also that information — when you compare it to the representations that have been made prior to trial by the defense — that has import.”
Read is back in court for another hearing March 4.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
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