Karen Read wins settlement from Massachusetts State Police after being acquitted in death of boyfriend in murder trial that captivated America

DAILYMAIL.COM • 42m ago

By WILKO MARTÍNEZ-CACHERO, US REPORTER 02:47 12 Nov 2026, updated 10:47 12 Nov 2026

The Massachusetts State Police will pay Karen Read a six-figure settlement to resolve her lawsuit against the agency after she was acquitted of murdering her police officer boyfriend in a high-profile trial last year.

Read, who will be paid $100,000, was found not guilty in June 2025 of the second-degree murder of her boyfriend, 46-year-old Boston police officer John O’Keefe.

She and O’Keefe had been drinking heavily on January 29, 2022, before she dropped him off at a party at the home of fellow officer Brian Albert, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors claimed that Read, 46, hit O’Keefe with her SUV before driving away and leaving him to die, but the defense successfully argued that the police officer was killed inside the home and then dragged outside.

Read filed a civil lawsuit in Bristol County Superior Court against the Massachusetts State Police and the town of Canton on June 4 of this year, alleging misconduct and negligence in the investigation that led to her prosecution in O’Keefe’s death.

She claimed that former state trooper Michael Proctor, also the lead investigator in Read’s murder case, had sent dozens of racist and bigoted text messages revealing ‘an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot’ within the police force.

State police said the settlement would ‘avoid prolonged litigation and the significant costs to taxpayers of continuing the case,’ according to the Washington Post.

Since Read’s claims were brought under Massachusetts’s Tort Claims Act, $100,000 was the maximum amount of money she could recover.

However, Read did ‘not agree or admit’ that she only suffered $100,000 in damages from the alleged misconduct in legal filings, Boston.com reported.

Read is also still ‘pursuing similar claims and related relief in other venues,’ per the reported filings.

The settlement agreement that would award Read the $100,000 still requires a judge’s approval.

The claims against Canton in her lawsuit are still active, according to the outlet.

Read’s suit alleged that Proctor and former Canton police Sgt Sean Goode, who responded to the crime scene, had repeatedly exchanged vile and antisemitic messages.

Proctor allegedly called Read a ‘whack job’ and wrote that he hoped she would kill herself, per the reported lawsuit.

He also allegedly once said that ‘Hitler was really on to something’ and used the n-word, the suit continued.

State police fired Proctor, who had been suspended without pay, in March 2025.

Proctor’s termination order said he ‘sent derogatory, defamatory, disparaging, and/or otherwise inappropriate text messages’ about Read, according to the Boston Globe.

He also ‘created an image that he was biased in his dealings with a homicide suspect and/or brought otherwise himself and the Massachusetts State Police into disrepute’ in doing so, per the reported order.

The Massachusetts State Police said in a filing on November 2 that it unequivocally condemned the ‘racist, sexist, and abhorrent messages quoted in the complaint, which do not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within its ranks,’ according to Boston25News.

Proctor had claimed that ‘these juvenile, unprofessional comments had zero impact on the facts, the evidence and the integrity of the investigation.’

Read was acquitted of her boyfriend’s murder but found guilty of a lesser charge of drunken driving last year.

A second-degree murder conviction would have carried a life sentence for Read.

She had also been charged with manslaughter and leaving the scene.

That verdict came almost one year after a separate jury deadlocked on July 1, 2024, over O’Keefe’s death, resulting in a mistrial being declared.

O’Keefe’s cause of death was blunt impact injuries to the head and hypothermia, according to Commonwealth of Massachusetts medical examiner Dr Irini Scordi-Bello.

Scordi-Bello previously testified that she did not have the information to determine whether his injuries were accidental.

Though a settlement has now been reached in this case, there are still multiple civil actions pending in relation to O’Keefe’s death.

His family has filed a wrongful death suit against Read, and she has filed a federal suit against civilian witnesses and investigators for allegedly colluding to frame her.

Four witnesses also filed a defamation lawsuit against Read in April in a case that remains open.

The Daily Mail has reached out to the Massachusetts State Police and Aaron Rosenberg, an attorney for Read, for further comment.

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