Norfolk DA drops charges in a witness intimidation case against ‘Turtleboy’
Days before a deadline to appoint a new prosecutor , Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey's office dropped charges against the blogger Aidan Kearney , known as "Turtleboy," in one of the three pending cases against him.
Last month, a judge gave the district attorney's office 30 days to find a new prosecutor for the 2024 indictments against Kearney after Robert Cosgrove, the retired judge prosecuting the case, withdrew. Cosgrove withdrew from the case after Lindsey Gaetani, an ex-girlfriend of Kearney's who is the named victim in the indictment, filed a counterclaim against him in a separate defamation case brought by Kearney.
The other special prosecutor on the case, Ken Mello, was disqualified by Doolin because of communications with Gaetani during the time of the incident.
In a statement shared with MassLive, Gaetani said she was "incensed" by the decision to drop the charges.
"I am calling for an independent investigation by the Attorney General's office to determine what, if any, efforts were made to comply with the court's order before these charges were dropped," Gaetani said. "The special prosecutor process in Massachusetts is fundamentally broken, and today's decision is a battle cry for reform."
As a result, no one was left to prosecute Kearney, with the district attorney's office having recused itself from the case.
"This afternoon, the Norfolk District Attorney filed a Nolle Prosequi in Norfolk Superior Court on [a Kearney case]," a spokesman for the district attorney's office said, citing the official court case number. "The remaining two dockets against Aidan Kearney continue to be prosecuted by Special Prosecutor Robert Cosgrove."
In 2024, Kearney was indicted on charges of witness intimidation, a felony, and disclosing the contents of a wiretap, a misdemeanor. Court records show the case was closed on Wednesday.
"The wins keep coming, and there's only a few more to go before my nightmare is over," Kearney wrote on X Wednesday afternoon.
Kearney also faces two other cases on indictments handed up in 2023 and 2025. His lawyers recently moved to dismiss the indictments in the 2023 case . They have also sought to disqualify Cosgrove from the 2023 case.
"These cases should have never been brought, and are outrageous expressions of unlawful viewpoint discrimination and a perversion of the First Amendment," Tim Bradl, a lawyer representing Kearney, said in a statement provided to MassLive Wednesday afternoon. "We expect the remaining matters to meet the same fate, whether through the district attorney filing additional writs of nolle prosequi, or through a jury verdict of acquittal."
Another lawyer representing Kearney in the case, Mark Bederow, said the "evidence was never credible."
The case was "always a disaster," he added.
Prosecutors say Kearney harassed and intimidated witnesses in the Karen Read case. His lawyers have said Kearney's conduct is protected by the First Amendment.
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