Karen Read Case: Judge Abruptly Suspends the Hearing Due to Concerning Information.
Briefing: It's not a Tuesday, but we've got MAJOR stuff to discuss.
Ohhhh boyyyy….
If you haven’t heard already, last week’s hearing in the Karen Read case was nothing short of explosive.
Due to the information that Prosecutor Brennan shared regarding concerning defense team behaviors, the judge abruptly suspended the hearing and postponed it for the following week (2/25/25). This was to provide the defense time to prepare their response to the potentially devastating issues that were brought to light.
So what was this all about?
Per usual, I’m going to attempt simplifying this down the best I can. This requires a short, basic timeline first…
September 2022 - Karen Read retained Hollywood attorneys Alan Jackson and Elizabeth Little to her team, alongside Boston attorney David Yannetti (retained January 2022).
November 2022 - A federal investigation was opened surrounding the claims that there could potentially be law enforcement corruption surrounding the Karen Read case. It took some time to understand the origin of this investigation, but it was eventually cleared up. Defendant Karen Read and her attorney David Yannetti walked into the state attorney’s office, and from that encounter, the wheels of a federal investigation began spinning.
It was discussed in court that everything provided to the feds was directly from the murder defendant and her team.
This means —
When the feds contracted two employees from a company called ARCCA to analyze if John O’Keefe’s injuries could have been caused by Karen Read’s vehicle, the information provided was from what the defense team gave the feds.
The Commonwealth states that they were never asked to provide anything for that analysis. (This seems like quite an unfair handicap IMO.)
When the federal investigation report was completed right before Karen’s first trial, both the defense and prosecution were provided a 3,000+ page report.
A piece of that report was of ARCCA’s findings.
The duo experts, Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, who worked together concluded that the injuries did not match up with a vehicular-pedestrian accident. The defense, having no accident reconstruction experts on their witness list, asked the feds if they could use those experts and their findings (paid by the federal government) to testify in court for the trial.
This was a bit complicated since the jury could not be informed that a federal investigation had occurred because that could potentially cause bias. It was also complicated due to a lack of discovery available to hand over because it was protected by the federal investigation.
Despite this…
The federal government gave permission for the ARCCA experts to share their analysis at the trial.
BUT under very specific guidelines…
ARCCA was to remain completely neutral from both the defense and the prosecution.
Yanetti told the court that, "Pursuant to the Touhy request, it was specifically outlined and ruled that they [ARCCA] could not prep with us." And so, the judge allowed a voir dire hearing to occur, following that up with a confirmed yes that they were allowed to testify in trial.
This is where things get sticky…
As Karen’s second trial approaches, the Commonwealth reminded the court that they have the right to Rule 14 reciprocal discovery regarding the ARCCA experts if the defense plans on using them again. Prosecutor Brennan recently told the court that the lack of discovery is not the fault of the defense, but clearly due to the complication of it being tied into the federal investigation that remains sealed. Brennan said he would do what he could to obtain that info so the defense could use the experts for this trial.
And that effort eventually led the Commonwealth to discover some concerning issues, which Prosecutor Brennan shared at the recent hearing.
The information provided caused the judge to suspend the hearing due to ‘grave concern’ leaving many of us with our jaws on the floor.
I will add two audio clips below of his argument. The first one is before the judge took a recess, and the 2nd one is post recess. I will also link the transcript below for those who want a visual of the dates and verbiage.
Click HERE for the transcript of that argument.
Trial researcher and commentator on X, Lydia, made this fantastic timeline below of ARCCA’s involvement. She’s a great follow if you’re on that platform.
The judge filed a notice the other day stating that counsel should be prepped to address all issues related to the last hearing on Tuesday 2/25/25 (tomorrow).
If the defense did, in fact, pay the neutral ARCCA experts, as well as communicate and prep them without informing the court…
This is BIG trouble for the defense.
Creating secrecy and bias behind closed doors in a murder trial could end in serious consequences for the defense team. And if the ARCCA expert, Daniel Wolfe, lied on the stand, he may also be in substantial legal trouble.
The defense has played to the media a lot, and they’ve amplified the ARCCA experts (as ‘independently hired by the feds’ and ‘completely neutral’) in many of their statements to the press to bolster their claims that Karen Read is innocent.
The new information showing a potential bias of ARCCA, as well as the fact that the defense was the only side who provided info to the feds really creates some doubts regarding the predisposition of the analysis. In fact, it was missing lots of important details that may have altered the conclusion.
The experts were never provided the tech-stream data retrieved from Karen’s vehicle (car speed, distance, etc), which was in discovery prior to trial.
The experts never tested using proper weather conditions (which played a huge role in the crime scene)
They never tested different body angles.
They never examined the actual vehicle despite given access to it.
If you’re interested in watching the hearing tomorrow, you can typically find it streaming on youtube’s CourtTV, Law & Crime, and Yellow Cottage Tales.
