Prosecutor relied on ‘false and misleading’ information to indict ‘Turtleboy,’ lawyer claims
Lawyers for the blogger Aidan Kearney , who goes by "Turtleboy" online, have filed a motion to dismiss the witness intimidation indictments against him, claiming a prosecutor and police investigator essentially doctored evidence to ensure Kearney would face charges.
The motion and accompanying affidavit, filed by attorney Mark Bederow and totaling more than 120 pages, were filed in Norfolk Superior Court last week. Kearney faces three pending witness intimidation cases there, in connection with incidents in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Kearney, one of the loudest champions of Karen Read's innocence leading up to and during her two criminal trials, is accused of harassing witnesses in the Read case. He and his lawyers have claimed his conduct is protected by the First Amendment.
Bederow's motion, the second motion to dismiss filed by Kearney's team this year, accuses the Norfolk County District Attorney's office of conspiring with the Massachusetts State Police, witnesses in the Read case and a former employee of Kearney's to concoct a criminal case against him to stop his reporting. Much of Kearney's reporting focused on what he believed was evidence that those witnesses were complicit in the death of Read's boyfriend, John O'Keefe, who was a Boston Police officer.
The filing accuses Ken Mello, the first special prosecutor hired to handle Kearney's cases, of intentionally misleading the grand jury convened to hear evidence in the 2023 case. Mello "intentionally and repeatedly [elicited] false and misleading testimony" from Det. Lt. Brian Tully, the lead investigator in the Kearney case.
Chief among that misleading testimony, Bederow writes, is the "false impression that Mr. Kearney's video episodes were 'admissions' of his alleged witness intimidation."
The filing also accuses Tully of cherry-picking clips from Kearney's YouTube videos, then changing the names of the episode titles, in order to paint him in a negative light before the grand jury. For example, an episode titled "Pre-Vacation Show: Fupasaurus, Jill Daniels, Karl Dugal, Taillight Mystery, Liz Proctor" was renamed "Enjoying Watching Witnesses Squirm" in the materials given to the grand jury.
Introducing the entire episodes into evidence would have "diluted the impact" of Tully's testimony before the grand jury, and provided more context for Kearney's statements, Bederow argues.
"Put simply, Mr. Mello ... made such a mockery of his responsibility as the legal advisor to the grand jury with his pervasive misconduct that the entire proceeding was a sham," the filing reads.
Mello has already been removed from one of the three cases against Kearney for communicating with a witness at the time of the incident that prompted the intimidation charge. Bederow argues he should be removed from the 2023 case as well because he could be called as a witness at trial.
Beyond just the alleged misconduct in the grand jury, the filing accuses Mello and Cosgrove of withholding evidence, despite several requests from Kearney's lawyers.
"The commonwealth has exhibited breathtaking indifference to its constitutional and statutory obligations to disclose evidence to the defense," Bederow wrote.
Specifically, Kearney's defense has yet to receive discovery related to the former employee, Katherine Peter. That evidence, Bederow contends, would be beneficial to Kearney's defense because it could show the nature of the relationship between Peter, Tully and Mello.
Peter is also accused of sending information to both men through "private links," which she has since deleted, according to Bederow. The deletion of that information has "left the defense without an opportunity to acquire important evidence that favors Mr. Kearney's defense," the filing reads.
As a result, Kearney's defense had not been able to put together a "detailed chronological timeline to demonstrate to a jury that a woman with dreadful credibility, who despises Mr. Kearney and has a penchant for falsifying evidence against him, helped orchestrate the criminal case against him with the blessing of the Commonwealth."
Cosgrove, the special prosecutor, has not responded to the motion. A hearing to address discovery motions in Kearney's case is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
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