Judge appears ready to allow search of Karen Read’s phones, despite attorney’s objection
Norfolk Superior Court Judge Peter Krupp appeared inclined Wednesday afternoon to allow the special prosecutor appointed in the witness intimidation cases against Aidan Kearney to press forward on searches of two of Karen Read 's phones.
Special prosecutor Robert Cosgrove last month filed a motion seeking to set forth a protocol to search two phones Read used to communicate with Kearney as part of an investigation into whether the pair conspired to intimidate witnesses in her criminal cases. An attorney representing Read filed a response opposing not the protocol outlined by Cosgrove, but the very idea that the government could search her phones.
Krupp convened the Wednesday afternoon hearing because the filings "spoke completely past each other." The warrant to seize Read's phones was obtained in January 2024 — before either of her criminal trials, the second of which concluded with her acquittal in June .
The issue at hand, Cosgrove explained, is that while the phones have been seized, Read never turned over the passwords to allow the devices to be downloaded and searched. Without those codes, it would take significantly longer to examine the devices.
It is Cosgrove's view that he already has permission to download the phones based on a warrant signed by Krupp granting permission to seize the devices in the first place.
"I think we already have leave to download the information, pursuant to the warrant," he said. "What we're seeking is leave to do the search, pursuant to the search protocol."
There are two prongs to the process, he said, seizing the physical phone, then getting permission to search it. Downloading the devices should not be a separate and distinct step, he said.
The response filed by attorney Steven Boozang opposing the search altogether cites a 2025 decision by the Appeals Court, which found that 123 days was too long a time for police to possess a person's phone without seeking a warrant. Krupp repeatedly pressed Boozang on whether he could cite a case speaking to the specific issue of whether a separate warrant was needed to download the phones.
"Do you have a case that says that when that's the circumstance and the year plus passes, they can't come back to the court to seek authorization to go into the phones when the court has originally authorized the seizure of the phones in the first place?" Krupp asked.
While the lawyer couldn't retrieve a specific case, he said the search was unreasonable under the 4th Amendment. Boozang suggested that Cosgrove only sought to go through the phones when he filed a motion asking they be returned.
He noted that a previous special prosecutor, Kenneth Mello, presented evidence to a grand jury on the accusation of conspiracy to commit witness intimidation, only for the grand jury to produce a no-bill.
"With this evidence, judge, that they have, they can go back to 10 grand juries, they're gonna get 10 no bills," he said. "In terms of reasonableness and timeliness, Judge ... it's been two years."
Boozang also opposed the protocol outlined by Cosgrove in his motion. He asked Krupp for several weeks to respond, which the judge denied. Instead, Krupp ordered the two men to agree to potential parameters for a search, assuming one is authorized.
Attorney Tim Bradl, who represents Kearney, pushed Krupp to hear arguments on a recent motion filed to disqualify Cosgrove from not just the 2023 indictments against Kearney, but also the ongoing investigation the special prosecutor is undertaking.
"It's a little cart before the horse," he said. "Counsel's forging ahead under a conflict. And I don't think counsel for the Commonwealth should be permitted to keep forging ahead on this thing until the conflict issue is resolved."
The conflict, Kearney's lawyers argue, stems from a counterclaim filed by an ex-girlfriend of Kearney's in response to a defamation lawsuit he brought against her in Worcester Superior Court.
In that counterclaim, Lindsey Gaetani, the victim in one of the pending cases against Kearney and a witness in another, claimed Cosgrove improperly released an unredacted report of a sexual assault she had accused Kearney of.
Kearney has never been charged with sexual assault.
Cosgrove has already withdrawn from the case in which Gaetani is the victim, but Kearney's lawyers argue he should withdraw from any case in which she is involved.
Krupp declined to hear the issue and said he would wait until prosecutors responded. But who exactly will respond to the motion is up in the air, Cosgrove said.
"Should I respond? Should or can the Norfolk district attorney's office respond? Or should it be the attorney general or someone else? So there are discussions on ... who the appropriate person is to respond to that," he said. "I expect it will take a little time to action that out."
Speaking outside the Dedham courthouse, Bradl described Cosgrove's investigation as the "ultimate sour grapes."
"They get their butts whipped at the murder trial, and now they want to scrape through Ms. Read's phones two years later to try to find something to get her on for retribution? The thing's ridiculous," he told reporters.
Boozang called the effort to go through Read's phones an "absurd fishing expedition."
"She conspired with nobody," he said.
He laid the blame for the new effort entirely at the feet of Cosgrove, who is acting independently of the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office. Had the district attorney been handling the case, Boozang said, there would be no effort to get evidence before a second grand jury.
Bradl suggested that Krupp should have stayed the proceedings until he ruled on the motion to disqualify Cosgrove. Boozang wouldn't say if he intended to join the motion, only that his focus was on getting Read's phones back.
Krupp noted during the hearing that if the phones are downloaded, they could be returned the next day, but Boozang said Read opposed the very idea of the phones being searched.
"She's not going to give a penny to these people. She's going to fight them to the end. She's annoyed. She's not upset, but she's an incredibly strong woman, but she's not going to let them try to walk all over her," he said. " If it was your phone, you wouldn't want it to go into it. They don't have a right to it. It's too intrusive, and it's just simply not right."
"They have nothing," he continued.
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