Karen Read's civil attorneys demand documents from DA, FBI, MSP, DOJ

Flint McColgan, Boston Herald on Aug 2, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Attorneys defending Karen Read in a civil suit by the family of John O’Keefe are demanding a wide range of documents involving her criminal case from state prosecutors to the Massachusetts State Police to federal agencies.

Subpoenas filed in the civil action demand “All documents, communications, audio or video recordings, or other data or items of any kind relating in any way to the investigation and prosecution of Karen Read” and “to the death of John J. O’Keefe, III or any investigation into his death” as well as a wide array of related materials be turned over to Read’s attorney’s office by Wednesday at 10 a.m.

The request targets the Norfolk District Attorney’s office, which prosecuted Read for the murder of O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer she had dated for about two years before his death on Jan. 29, 2022.

Jurors earlier this summer acquitted Read of all criminal charges, including murder, except for the least serious they could consider: drunken driving.

The end of her criminal trial meant that the civil action filed by the O’Keefe family against her could resume.

The subpoenas go much further than the Norfolk DA’s office, however, and also target any materials held by the State Police, who investigated O’Keefe’s death, and from federal agencies including the FBI and the Department of Justice — meaning its local arm, the Boston U.S. Attorney’s office — which had a hand in probing that investigation.

The demands also target individuals affiliated with those agencies, including case investigators MSP Trooper Yuriy Bukhenik and fired Trooper Michael Proctor. Proctor was put on leave immediately after Read’s first trial ended in mistrial last year and was fired before her second trial got started this April, almost entirely to sustained allegations of unprofessional behavior during the O’Keefe investigation.

The MSP inquiry that led to his firing found that he had shared negative personal opinions of Read from early in his investigation and even shared classified investigatory information on the case with those not entitled to it. Just weeks ago, defense attorneys in several cases involving Proctor were told that the Norfolk DA had a cache of iCloud information from his work and personal phones and that it would be deleted.

Those attorneys, who claim they were blindsided by the disclosure this information existed, then sought and won an emergency month-long extension of its scheduled deletion, arguing the trove could contain materials that could show a similar bias against their own clients.

Read’s civil suit attorneys likewise want their hands on that information.

“For the avoidance of doubt, this Subpoena demands that you maintain and do not delete, discard, or otherwise destroy and portion of Michael Proctor’s iCloud or other data that you have in your current possession, custody, or control, including but not limited to, the data subject to a federal court protective order, which you previously agreed at a hearing before the Norfolk Superior Court to maintain until July 25, 2025,” a subpoena document states.

The subpoena also requests “All documents and communication with FBI, DOJ, or MSP” regarding the cases of Sandra Birchmore, Brian Walshe and Myles King, all of whom are related to cases investigated by the Norfolk contingent of MSP investigators.

Federal prosecutors say Birchmore was killed in her Canton apartment by then-Stoughton cop Matthew Farwell, who prosecutors say groomed the younger woman since she was a child, impregnated her and then killed her.

Walshe is accused of murdering his wife, Ana Walshe, at their Cohasset home on Jan. 1, 2023.

Myles King is accused of shooting to death Marquis Simmons, 25, outside his mother’s home on Belvoir Road in Milton a little before 6 p.m. on July 10, 2021.

________