O'Keefe's family files wrongful death lawsuit

The family of late Boston police officer John O'Keefe has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Karen Read, O'Keefe's girlfriend and alleged killer.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, is accused of drunkenly and intentionally hitting O'Keefe with his SUV after a night out at bars in Canton in January 2022. The high-profile case ended in a mistrial July 1 following a deadlocked jury, and Read's retrial is scheduled to begin Jan. 27.

Read has always maintained her innocence, saying others were responsible for O'Keefe's death and accusing law enforcement of setting her up in a cover-up. Yet in a civil complaint filed Monday in Plymouth Superior Court, O'Keefe's family alleged that Read “knowingly and willfully changed her story and invented a conspiracy knowing it to be false.”

The lawsuit also names CF McCarthy's and the Waterfall Bar & Grille, the two Canton bars where the couple drank before O'Keefe's death on Jan. 29, 2022. The plaintiffs include O'Keefe's brother, Paul, his parents, Peggy and John, and his niece, whom O'Keefe was caring for when he died.

According to the complaint, Read “knew that her relationship with (O’Keefe) had ended” as early as Jan. 28, 2022. The complaint echoes prosecutors’ allegations that Read consumed a total of nine drinks while she and O’Keefe chatted with friends and acquaintances at CF McCarthy’s and Waterfall. Brian Albert, another patron of the bar and fellow Boston police officer, invited the Waterfall group back to his home on Fairview Road for an afterparty.

The lawsuit alleges that Read “was under the influence of alcohol and unable to safely operate a motor vehicle” as she drove O’Keefe to Fairview Road after midnight on January 29, 2022. A forensic scientist formerly with the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab’s toxicology unit testified at Read’s trial that her blood alcohol level would have been between 0.135% and 0.292% at 12:45 a.m. on the 29th, based on her blood test at Good Samaritan Medical Center later that morning.

The family's lawsuit alleges that Read fled the scene after hitting O'Keefe with his car, leaving her boyfriend of two years to die in a snowstorm. O'Keefe was pronounced dead hours later, and a medical examiner testified at Read's trial that the official cause of death was “blunt force injuries to the head and hypothermia.”

Later on the 29th, Read visited O'Keefe's grieving family at his home in Canton, “pretended to be comforted” and “took the opportunity to, among other things, remove the incriminated weapon, his vehicle and/or destroy relevant evidence,” the lawsuit alleges.

O'Keefe's family claims they suffered “aggravated emotional distress” because of Read's “false account” of the party's guests and law enforcement's conspiracy to frame her for O'Keefe's death. The lawsuit accuses Read and the two bars of wrongful death, alleging that CF McCarthy's and Waterfall “negligently served alcohol to an intoxicated person, namely Defendant Read.”

The complaint also alleges that Read negligently, recklessly or intentionally inflicted emotional distress on O'Keefe's niece when she woke the teenager around 4:30 a.m. on the 29th to inform her that O'Keefe had not come home. According to the complaint, the niece heard Read say, “Maybe I did something… Maybe a snowplow hit him… Maybe I had hit him… Maybe I hit him… (we) were arguing… Maybe he got hit by a snowplow.”

Then, according to the complaint, Read left the teenager alone at home while she returned to Fairview Road to look for O'Keefe.

“The emotional distress suffered by (O'Keefe's niece) was severe and of a nature that no reasonable person could be expected to endure,” the lawsuit says.

O'Keefe's family is seeking at least $50,000 in damages. Boston.com has reached out to both bar associations and Read's attorneys for comment.

Monday’s trial follows months of public outcry and media attention surrounding Read’s criminal case. Large crowds gathered outside Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham each day of Read’s trial, which spanned more than eight weeks of testimony. Dueling crowds of trial observers — some part of the “Free Karen Read” movement, others supporting O’Keefe’s family — continue to hover around the courthouse at each post-trial hearing.

Last week, Judge Beverly Cannone denied a defense motion to dismiss two of the three criminal charges Read faces, including second-degree murder and fleeing the scene of a fatal accident. Citing information gathered from several presumptive jurors after the mistrial, the defense argued that the jury was deadlocked only on the charge of involuntary manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol. It alleges that the jurors informally decided to acquit Read of the other two charges.

In response to Cannone's ruling, defense attorney Martin Weinberg — who spoke on the motion to dismiss — said Read's team “fully intends to mount a vigorous appeal to assert and defend Ms. Read's rights under the double jeopardy clause of the federal constitution.”

Read the full complaint: