Karen Read tells her story (Part 2): A new trial is about to take place in Massachusetts
Read Yannetti, Jackson, Little and her stayed in the same hotel throughout the trial so they could maximize preparation time. She paid $1.2 million before and during the nine-week proceedings between bails; accommodate, feed and transport three lawyers; and hiring private investigators and experts. To do that, she used her savings, about $500,000 from a depleted legal fund and $400,000 donated by friends and family. She now has more than $5 million in deferred legal bills and a second trial coming up.
According to Read, the first time was “trying it out on a budget.” Since she could not afford to hire support staff from Jackson and Little’s company, Read became a support staff herself. She negotiated a rate with two Uber drivers to transport the team to and from court. Read learned that her group was photographed getting out of SUVs (discount) and surrounded by security (volunteer) as well as eating out (the bill was often picked up by friends or family members ). To criticism that her team sometimes likes to eat at high-end restaurants, she said: “You try feeding Alan Jackson McDonald’s.”
“We don’t usually work that closely with clients,” said Little, who became a partner during a probationary period due to the long hours. “But in this case, we need everyone to join hands.”
“LOCK THIS JOB UP”
Approximately 10 months after O’Keefe’s death, the United States Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts authorized a federal grand jury to participate in the investigation of an unspecified federal crime related to the handling of the case. Read’s case in Norfolk County. Motivation unknown; Levy would not comment on ongoing investigations, and nearly two years into the investigation, his team has yet to reach a conclusion. “When the FBI gets involved, it’s usually a sign that they’re in possession of some extremely serious information,” said Tom Nolan, a 27-year-old Boston police officer turned criminal justice professor at Emmanuel College. causing harm to relevant law enforcement agencies.” who is not involved in Read’s case. Last year, Alberts, McCabes and other witnesses were subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury, according to state court proceedings.
Pursuing a federal investigation into an ongoing state murder is logistically extremely complicated — in part because two agencies are interviewing the same witnesses at the same time. Zach Hafer, a former federal prosecutor and partner at Cooley LLP, told me, “I can’t think of a single time in my 14 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office that that happened. Perhaps it was some form of federal obstruction or witness tampering investigation — some kind of cover-up.”
“In these types of cases, it is common for prosecutors to grant immunity to certain witnesses to help them determine what happened and whether there was a provable federal crime. Are not. The United States Attorney’s Office has always made it a priority to prosecute law enforcement misconduct,” Hafer said, pointing out that making false statements to federal agents is a felony that carries a five-year sentence. “So even if an individual did not commit the underlying crime—in this case, murder—lying about it after the fact to federal investigators is another potential charge. ”
Just before the trial began, the feds provided more than 3,000 pages of documents to the defense and prosecution, including Proctor’s deposition on Read.
A sample:
but she is a beautiful girl, with a strange autumn river accent, no butt
She has a leaking bladder plug, leaking stool
Waiting to lock this job
Hopefully she will commit suicide.
The federal investigation found that Brian Albert destroyed his cell phone the day before receiving a protective order preserving it and its contents. (Albert said the timing was a coincidence and he was about to upgrade.) Also: on January 30, Higgins, an ATF agent who worked at Alberts’, asked another federal agent gives advice on how to extract phone data. Months later, he drove to a military base to dispose of his destroyed phone and SIM card. (Higgins testified that the target of another investigation found his contact information.) The FBI also determined that Higgins went to the Canton Police Department – where he worked – after leaving Albert’s house, even though he was off work and had been drinking. . (He said he was repairing the car.) He spent most of the next day, a Saturday when he was still off duty, there—passing the garage where Read’s car ended up held—until about 6 p.m. The federal investigation found a second 22-hour call between Albert and Higgins at 2:22 a.m.—five minutes before McCabe’s alleged “hos long to die in cold” search. The men said that both dialing and receiving those calls were “butt dialing.”
Even though the federal findings were revealed, Morrissey appealed to Cannone days before the trial to ban mention of the federal investigation in court, arguing that it would be prejudicial. Cannone granted the request, meaning Read’s attorneys could not utter the words “FBI” in front of the jury. For example, when questioning forensic reconstructionists hired by the Department of Justice, the most Jackson could say was that they were hired by an independent agency. Some jurors took that to mean they worked for an insurance company.
