Holy Taillight Cover.
Tuesday Briefing: Karen Read's defense argues to dismiss the case, and we recently heard some good news for the witnesses.
Huge news broke last week regarding the federal investigation that began several years ago regarding allegations of police corruption in the Karen Read case.
The investigation has officially ended with zero indictments, thus exonerating many people from a conspiracy theory that the murder defendant (and her team) pushed into the media, as well as into the lap of former state attorney, Josh Levy.
Unfortunately —
The people who have endured the relentless, speculative gossip surrounding their character are still being dragged through the mud on social media by the public conspiracy-pushing mob who refuse to acknowledge that the investigation is over. It doesn’t fit their conspiracy theory, so the denial is vital for their belief of corruption to continue.
Vocal “Free Karen Read” conspiracists have put out statements declaring that prosecutor Hank Brennan (who is an officer of the court), as well as Canton Police Chief Helena Rafferty are lying about the federal investigation coming to an end.
Of course…
In order to believe that it’s a lie, you’d also have to believe that the state attorney’s office would allow these officials to lie to the court and public uncorrected.
This notion is not only absurd, it’s based in zero evidence whatsoever.
Just like the conspiracy theory that 20+ people are risking their livelihood and careers (including medics, city officers, a SERT team, birthday party attendees, etc.) to frame a drunk driver over an alleged dog bite and physical altercation.
INSIDE THE COURTROOM :
As I mentioned last week, the defense filed a motion for Egregious Government Misconduct, and the prosecution filed their opposition to that.
Both sides made their arguments last week in court, which ultimately focused on two main topics that the defense demanded were proof of misconduct:
Assertions of jury tampering regarding Lt. Fanning.
Assertions that there was ‘destruction and withholding of exculpatory Canton Police Department surveillance video footage’.
The topic regarding jury tampering was quickly shut down by the judge because the allegations were blatantly false.
The defense asserted that Lt. Fanning (who participated in some witness interviews in the investigation prior to trial) had access to the jurors because he is the Commander of Extensive Security Operations. Towards the end of the first trial, a juror was removed because it was reported that she was at local bar bragging about being a juror, and proclaiming Karen’s innocence. This was reported to Fanning who reported it to the court. The defense claims Fanning’s close connections with the jury gave him insight into this person’s leanings in favor of Karen, and that he intentionally got her removed.
The judge clarifies that the court officers are the people in charge of the jury in MA, not Fanning’s position as CESO.
In fact—
Fanning never even stepped into the courthouse during the trial.
It appears the defense backed off on that allegation after the judge clarified that their inference was completely unfounded, and they moved on to the security video argument.
Before we dive into this topic, it’s important to note that the security footage issue is seemingly complicated for several reasons:
✅There are numerous security cameras throughout the police station, including at least two in the Sally Port garage, as well as multiple exterior cameras.
✅The quality of the camera footage is poor, and the request for preservation from the defense was not as direct as they claim it was.
In the most simple way of explaining the topic lets break it down with a timeline…
👉In February 2022, the defense requested the preservation of “all physical evidence”.
👉The Commonwealth followed the request up by preserving all physical evidence from the crime scene that they considered as evidence.
👉 Investigator Proctor requested Sally Port video footage, and received segments from the front wall camera that are blurry. The Commonwealth was unaware of this video, and Proctor never provided it. It’s likely, he found it to be useless because the quality was so poor, and it provided no real use to the case as evidence of anything. However, he still should have forwarded it to the Commonwealth.
👉Months later, a conspiracy theory emerged from the defense, claiming that the officers and witnesses were framing Karen Read.
👉In 2023, investigator Proctor requested and was provided an exterior camera footage. It was left on his desk. The Commonwealth was not notified about this, and didn’t know of it’s existence until closer to trial Spring 2024.
👉 After the grand jury testimony of investigator Proctor, prosecutor Lally inquired about the security footage. Three videos were provided. All of them poor quality, and one was later noted in trial as inverted or mirrored.
👉 After the first trial, additional videos were added to discovery.
The Defense argued:
The “dribs and drabs” of receiving footage was clear misconduct, and that the low quality, motion-activated, and glitching of the videos is unfair to Karen Read. They also claim that a quality image from those cameras would show exonerating evidence of Karen’s taillight intact.They said there was no visual proof of Karen’s vehicle having a hole in her taillight until it was already in police custody. They also infer by the ghosting effect on the Sally Port video that it’s proof of being edited.
The Prosecution argued:
The Commonwealth does not consider all or any security footage of the Canton Police Station as part of the crime scene, and that the defense’s evolving narrative of corruption and desire to claim the station as part of the crime scene is a convenient and unfair representation of the truth. Prosecutor Brennan quotes defense attorney David Yannetti even saying (in the first trial) that the station is not part of the crime scene. The attempt to claim it is now part of the crime scene, and that it was nefarious for the officers to not consider it as that is simply an opportune effort for the defense to make now.
The Sally Port video debate is a moot point because there are several images of Karen’s vehicle prior to being in police custody, showing a visible hole in her vehicle taillight cover.
Prosecutor Brennan corrects the defense regarding their misrepresentation of the Dighton officer’s testimony. Both Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little told the judge that the officer only said there was a crack in the taillight when he looked at the vehicle prior to it being towed back to Canton. The defense attorneys both conveniently left out the testimony of the Dighton officer saying there was a missing piece, which accurately describes the damage.
Prosecutor Brennan then quotes the defendant telling a journalist that the taillight bulb was exposed, and she was afraid of an electrical surge. Karen says she even broke a piece of the taillight cover off with her hands and tossed it on the ground. (This event was prior to her vehicle being in custody).
Poor quality video footage is not an intentional effort by the officers or the Commonwealth. They can not be punished for something that is not their fault. With that said, the station has since upgraded their system.
Commonwealth provided proof of sally port garage footage weeks prior to John’s death showing that one of the interior cameras in question does record on an inverted mode all the time, and that the other one has always recorded super dark. Nothing was intentionally mirrored or darkened.
Although investigator Proctor should have been more thorough on delivering over footage that he didn’t deem as useful, the bottom line is that there is plenty of evidence to show that Karen’s taillight cover has a big missing piece in it before the vehicle ever reached the police station.
This means that regardless of the debate over the security cameras being grainy, having ghosting effects, or freezing momentarily…
No video footage in the police station (whether clear or blurry) would make Karen’s vehicle have any less of a hole in her taillight at 5am on the morning John was found deceased.
(As of me writing this on 3/10/25, the judge has not made her decision regarding the defense’s motion to dismiss. We are also waiting on her response regarding the defense team not sharing reciprocal discovery with the court regarding ARCCA.)
New Filings on the Docket:
Judge Cannone made several decisions on pending motions…
👉Judge agrees to gag order for all attorneys. We learn about the leak of grand jury information the defendant made to a journalist several times, and her attorney Alan Jackson who was present with her at the time, never stepped in to stop this info leak. The defense attorneys have been clearly trying their case in the press, and proof of this sentiment was shown when Alan Jackson told a journalist he will intentionally mention non-public info in a hearing so that the journalist could write about it publicly.
👉Judge denies request for sanctions. Defense attorney Yannetti publicly mentioned non-public info regarding the federal investigation, but the judge found that to be unintentional, and denied sanctions.
👉Judge denies request for Bederow (attorney for Aidan Kearney/ Turtleboy) to join Karen’s defense team due to a conflict of interest.
👉Judge denies defense’s request to exclude the CW’s dog expert witness, and agrees to a Daubert Hearing for further examination.