Karen Read lawyer demands investigation into Boston Police commissioner
Karen Read 's lead criminal defense lawyer is calling for an investigation into Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox after a document revealed Cox knew of his department's connection to the Read case, despite remarks to the contrary.
The document was obtained by Corri Hopkins, a lawyer in North Carolina who supported Read's innocence online. Hopkins obtained an email to Cox from Stephen J. Kelleher, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Field Office, sent on Feb. 22, 2024.
In the email, Kelleher informs Cox that the federal government released documents from its investigation in the Read case to the district attorney's office. Kelly Dever , a police officer who worked in Boston at the time, is mentioned in those documents because she worked in Canton the night Read's boyfriend, John O'Keefe, died.
Hopkins provided a copy of the email to MassLive.
In Jackson's view, that email contradicts what Cox told reporters earlier this year.
"I have nothing to do with Karen Read. Matter of fact, I didn't even know this person was associated with the Karen Read case," Cox told reporters in July , weeks after Read's acquittal. "It's much to do about nothing."
"That case is over. I've got nothing to do with Karen Read. I was in the state of Michigan," Cox continued, referencing the fact that he served as chief of police in Ann Arbor on Jan. 29, 2022, when O'Keefe died.
In a letter provided to Boston 25 News , Jackson wrote that Cox was "caught in a lie — and not a small one."
"Cox's televised claim that he 'had nothing to do with Karen Read' and didn't even know this person [Kelly Dever] was associated with the Karen Read case' was a bald-faced lie — one now disproven by documentary evidence originating from the Federal Bureau of Investigation itself," Jackson wrote. "For the Commissioner to suggest that he had 'nothing to do with that case' defies both logic and leadership. Common sense tells us he had everything to do with it."
Dever, who resigned in September , was called as a witness by Read's defense during her retrial. On the stand, she had a series of tense exchanges with Jackson as he questioned her.
In an interview with federal agents, Dever claimed she saw Brian Higgins, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and former Canton Police Chief Ken Berkowitz alone with Read's SUV in the department's sallyport for a "wildly long time." But on the stand, Dever recanted that story as a false memory.
Dever's recollection would have supported the theory pushed by Read's defense that Higgins and others conspired to frame her. Jackson repeatedly pressed Dever on whether Cox called her to a meeting, where he told her to "do the right thing."
Dever only conceded that she met with the commissioner.
Jackson's letter is addressed to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Enrique Zuniga, who heads the state's Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, a police accountability agency. He calls for POST to open an investigation into Cox.
"When a police commissioner lies about his own contacts with the FBI and meetings with an implicated officer, he forfeits the credibility and integrity his oath requires," Jackson wrote, according to WCVB . "This is not a political issue. It is a question of credibility and public trust."
The letter asks for Cox to be put on the city's "Brady list," a reference to a list maintained by prosecutors of police officers whose credibility may be an issue at trial. State law requires such lists to be turned over during discovery.
Wu's office did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the POST Commission confirmed it received the letter, but declined to comment further, citing confidentiality requirements.
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