Defense attorneys in the Karen Read case were right: there is a federal inquiry into the investigation into the case, according to newly unsealed letters.
In the letters between the Norfolk District Attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the Read case, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts and other Department of Justice entities, the DA’s office sought to have the inquiry transferred out of Massachusetts — but that request was denied.
Read is accused of murdering her boyfriend of two years, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, the evening of Jan. 29, 2022.
“I write to formally request that an ongoing investigation being conducted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts be examined by the Office of Professional Responsibility and, should the investigation continue, that it be transferred to another office without history of conflict, bias, and abuse of prosecutorial discretion,” Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey wrote in a May 18, 2023, letter to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
While the letters do not make clear exactly what the feds are investigating regarding the Read case, Morrissey describes the effort as “apparently unprecedented” and “highly unusual and possibly abusive exercise of power.” He says that he believes the effort was spurred by Read’s defense attorneys who he said spun their third-party culpability defense “out of whole cloth” and “invented” facts to support their theories.
“It appears to be unprecedented for the federal government to step into the middle of an ongoing state murder prosecution prompted only by inflammatory and ethically dubious defense strategy,” Morrissey wrote.
He also alleged that at least one assistant U.S. Attorney in the office had a personal vendetta against the Norfolk DA’s office because the attorney’s wife had worked there, was found lacking in legal experience and who eventually quit and filed an ethics complaint that was “summarily dismissed in short order.” He said this prosecutor had inquired of a State Police detective, apropos of nothing, during a joint federal and Norfolk DA investigation related to a Whitey Bulger gangland murder years ago if there was any dirt to be found on the DA or anyone else in the office.
The complaint made its way to the DOJ’s Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, the office with jurisdiction on such recusal requests.
“I contacted Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy. Based on my understanding from that discussion with USA Levy, his office has a very different opinion of the circumstances in this case than as presented in Mr. Morrissey’s letter. … At this time, we see no basis for recusal in this investigation,” Jay Macklin, that office’s general counsel, wrote in an Aug. 3 letter.
The eight letters began with a May 9, 2023, follow-up letter by Norfolk First Assistant DA Lynn Beland to the U.S. Attorney’s office asking for clarity and concluded with a Morrissey letter offering up cooperation to the FBI by inviting them to interview State Police detectives in his office. The letters were first obtained by Fox25’s Ted Daniel on Monday.
The U.S. Attorney’s office had offered no comment since the investigation was first hinted at, but had no problem with their release, according to a new letter from the U.S Attorney’s office dated ahead of the last hearing. The Norfolk DA’s office had argued against their release until that hearing when prosecutor Adam Lally declined to verbally argue against their release.
“The letters make plain that the District Attorney never asked that any investigation be ended,” DA spokesman David Traub said in a statement Tuesday. “But the DA, along with many in the legal community, recognize that federal interference in an open state murder case is highly unusual if not unprecedented.”
