Karen Read sues police for dead ex-cop boyfriend she was accused of murdering: 'We are the voice for John'

nypost.com

Karen Read hit the airwaves Friday morning on the heels of her blistering lawsuit alleging police corruption, saying “the wrongs have not been completely righted” and that she thinks of her dead cop ex every day.

Read, 46, — who was acquitted last year of killing her beau John O’Keefe in 2022 — filed suit Thursday against the investigators in her criminal case, exposing a slew of their alleged racist, sexist and curse-laden text messages.

After living through two criminal trials — the first of which ended with a hung jury and the second with an acquittal — Read said in a TV interview on the “TODAY” show that she brought the suit because “the wrongs have not been completely righted.”

Aren Read speaking.

Karen Read said on the “TODAY” show that she filed the lawsuit because “the wrongs have not been completely righted.” TODAY/Youtube

Karen Read with John O'Keefe, both smiling for a photo.

Read was acquitted last year of killing her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, in 2022 — and has suggested that he was actually killed by a group of his cop friends. Courtesy of David Yannetti

“I want this to be over. But it’s not done yet,” she said.

She said O’Keefe is “the victim of institutional corruption. And we are the voice for John.”

Read has maintained from the outset that she was framed for O’Keefe’s murder, suggesting that he was actually killed by a group of his cop friends who were all at the Canton home where Read dropped him off on Jan. 29, 2022.

As she works to expose the rampant corruption she claimed plagued her criminal case, she said she has “lived nearly daily, John’s final moments.”

She thinks about “what happened to him; what was on his phone; what was the temperature of his phone; and what were his interactions that he experienced prior to his death with members of the family that lived in that house,” Read said.

Read was accused of fatally mowing O’Keefe down with her SUV after dropping him off at his cop buddy’s house following a heavy night of drinking. Prosecutors claimed Read then drove off, leaving O’Keefe to die in a snow bank as a winter storm was coming in overnight.

Karen Read at the ABC Studios in New York City, Manhattan.

During Read’s criminal case, a slew of the police officers’ alleged racist, sexist and curse-laden text messages were exposed. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock

The first trial ended with a deadlocked jury in July 2024 and the second trial resulted in her being acquitted of causing O’Keefe’s death but convicted of drunk driving.

Read said in the interview that she hasn’t gotten a job since her criminal case ended because she’s been fighting every day to get justice for herself and for O’Keefe.

“I’m working on the case every day. And I don’t know that I really ever took time off,” she said.

Three people, two men and one woman, sit on a white couch on a TV set.

Read said she hasn’t gotten a job since her criminal case ended because she’s been fighting every day to get justice for herself and for O’Keefe.

Karen Read and John O'Keefe smiling at a table.

“I’m working on the case every day. And I don’t know that I really ever took time off,” Read said. Courtesy of David Yannetti

Her cases exposed misconduct by two investigators former State Trooper Michael Proctor and former Canton Police Sgt. Sean Goode. Both cops were fired in the wake of the revelations.

At Read’s first trial, Proctor testified and was forced to admit to degrading messages he sent to friends and family about Read, as well as the fact that he appeared to have his mind made up about her from the outset.

He infamously called Read a “wack job c–t” in one message.

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Read’s new lawsuit alleges that over a decade Proctor and Goode regularly used deragatory phrases like:: “fat c–t[s],” “sluts,” “dirty n—-ers,” “n-glets”, “stupid ugly g–k[s],””c—k tard[s],” “s–c[s],” and “jew chick[s].”

Read told “TODAY” she filed the new case because “I was never going to be able to just forget that this happened to me, that I was wronged in this way. I couldn’t just go back to life as it was.”

“I have to continue fighting for justice. The acquittal is deserved, but the wrongs have not been completely righted,” she said.

Karen Read speaks to microphones outside a courthouse after being found not guilty of second-degree murder.

Read speaks after being found not guilty of second-degree murder on June 18, 2025, in Dedham, Massachusetts. AP Photo/Josh Reynolds

And while her suit will ultimately seek money damages, Read’s lawyer, Alan Jackson, told the outlet: “What Karen wants, you cannot write on a check, which is exposure, exposure of the corruption that is the the DNA of the Massachusetts State Police, of the Canton Police Department, which is evidenced by these two individuals in their their text messages.”

Read is also fighting a wrongful death lawsuit by the O’Keefe family.