Karen Read Retrial Recap No. 3: An Ex-Federal Agent Claims the FBI is Still Looking into the 'Shoddiness' and 'Corruption' of the Investigation

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

If the two Commonwealth v. Karen Read trials were dramas - and I've been contending all along they were - they shared one common plot thread that ended up going nowhere. Like you remember all those story lines in LOST we never got explanations for? The magic numbers that kept cropping up. Mysterious Egyptian hieroglyphs all over the place. Characters with powers that were never explained. Or for a more recent example, the Star Wars sequels where Fin kept hinting about some dark secret he never revealed. Then there was a 30-minute side quest to Planet Vegas or somewhere that resulted in a dead end. Come to think of it, maybe Jar Jar Abrams' is just an untalented hack who can't tell stories. Where was I? Oh, right. Karen Read.

 Hanging over the proceedings of both trials like a Sword of Damocles was the FBI investigation into the Commonwealth's investigation into John O'Keefe's death. The Feds were never specifically referenced in front of the jury except in passing by one prosecution witness. Instead they were referred to in oblique terms like "agents" from "another law enforcement agency" and so on. But that investigation's presence was always felt throughout. Their interviews with witnesses were discussed. Data they retrieved from phones was presented as evidence. Experts hired by them became witnesses for the defense. 

And all along it was assumed by a lot of Read's supporters that at some point, the boys in the blue windbreakers:

 were going come rolling up with some early morning raids and start zip-tying corrupt officials hands behind their backs and frog walk them into vans for the TV cameras. 

It goes without saying, that never happened. Or anything close to it. In fact, the silence from the Boston field office has been deafening. There have been reports they closed their investigation after finding no wrongdoing. But those reports have been disputed. And are hard to swallow when you consider all the perjury, changing stories, butt dials, destroyed phones, and the general skeeviness of the way Norfolk County DA Michael Morrissey's department has handled this matter:

So it's big news that a former long time federale is going on the record to say the FBI's involvement is far from over:

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Source -  An ex-federal agent believes that the FBI is ‘playing the long game’ while investigating possible police corruption surrounding the death of Boston cop John O’Keefe – just days after his girlfriend Karen Read was sensationally cleared of killing him.

Glamorous Read, 45,

Let me just interject here and say this is probably the first time a Dighton, MA chick in her mid-40s has ever been described with that adjective:

But OK. I'm not here to judge the relative glamor of a woman who's been found Not Guilty of homicide by a jury of her peers. Moving on:

… was found not guilty of the January 2022 murder. …

Her defense team alleged that Read was the victim of an elaborate plot by local Boston law enforcement to frame her, claiming O'Keefe was killed by other police officers from Canton, Massachusetts, who were at the gathering. 

Sean McDonough, a 35-year veteran of law enforcement, told DailyMail.com he believes that a probe into the bungled Massachusetts State Police investigation has been a long time coming.

'This is definitely not justice for John O'Keefe nor his family. That's number one,’ McDonough, who spent 28 years with the DEA and seven years as a Washington DC-area cop and crime scene investigator, told the Daily Mail.

‘In my opinion, based on my 28 years’ experience as a federal agent, I wholeheartedly believe that they are still investigating.

‘How it happened, I don't know, but I can tell you based on the shoddiness of that investigation – favors were called in. 

‘It's a public corruption case and civil rights violations case, and I just believe – as we said many times in my career – we hold the time, we hold the stopwatch, and anytime we want, we can stop it. 

'So I believe they're playing the long game.’

To be clear, this is just one man's opinion. But after 28 years under his belt, I think we can all give this Sean McDonough's opinion more weight than we would, say, a prosecutor who tried and failed to convict Read. Or any of the people on the socials who've been rooting for her to die in prison. Or even that of a charming, handsome silver fox who's been writing about these trials on a sports comedy site. 

One question remains though. If they are still looking into this, what's taking so long? The FBI can charge anyone they want with anything, then let the courts sort it out later. For sure, they can - and do - get people for lying to them all the time. It's one of the things they do best. And it seems there's nothing they enjoy more than making a display of hauling away some local officials for wrongdoing. It makes for great visuals. It's right up there with the photos of agents standing behind huge bags of smuggled drugs or a cache of weapons they confiscated. 

So the idea that they're still probing this almost two and a half years after John O'Keefe was found dying in the snow is hard to swallow. I hope this McDonough guy is right. It would restore my faith in the system. But until we hear otherwise, I'm just going to keep assuming someone got away with murder here. And it's wasn't Karen Read.