Perjury at Karen Read trial? Experts explain what ‘false statement’ by key witness means
In a dramatic exchange on day 2 of the Karen Read murder trial, the judge turned to a key prosecution witness and asked, "Did you lie?"
The witness looked away from the judge, startled by the question, and replied, "I did. Not intentionally."
The admission by Kerry Roberts, a close friend of John O'Keefe, came during intense cross-examination by Read's attorney, Alan Jackson, on Wednesday. It also marked a significant difference from the first trial since the defense decided not to cross-examine Roberts last year.
Roberts admitted to telling a "false statement" to a grand jury in 2022 before Read's indictment. Jackson asked if she realized she made the false statement under oath and penalty of perjury, to which she said, "I did."
Attorney Alan Jackson gives his opening statement at Karen Read's second murder trial at Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 in Dedham, Mass. (Stuart Cahill /The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)AP
The exchange went viral and set social media and YouTube commentators ablaze with questions around whether Roberts admitted to committing perjury during her testimony.
A retired Massachusetts judge isn't so convinced. He said the admission amounted to a prior inconsistent statement, but perjury?
"If they prosecuted this person for a prior inconsistent statement, there would have to be hundreds and hundreds of perjury cases," said Jack Lu, a mediator and adjunct law professor at Boston College who served as a Massachusetts Superior Court judge for 16 years.
Perjury charges are "fairly unusual," Lu said, and they are difficult to prove.
State law makes it a crime for someone to "wilfully" give false statements in a "material" matter while under oath. In other words, to make "intentional, material misstatements … to intentionally lie under oath," according to Lu. Those misrepresentations must be consequential.
In a recent case of convicted perjury, a Worcester County man was found guilty following a three-day trial after prosecutors argued he lied to protect himself and his girlfriend, who was convicted of murder in November 2021.
Here's how Wednesday's testimony in the Read trial compares.
What did Kerry Roberts say?
Roberts was with Read and another witness when they found O'Keefe's unresponsive body in the snow in front of a Canton home on Jan. 29, 2022.
The cross-examination by Jackson delved into whether Roberts personally heard Read ask the other witness, Jennifer McCabe, to Google search hypothermia after they discovered O'Keefe in the snow. The Google search will become more significant later in the trial, since the defense contends that McCabe also searched "ho(w) long to die in cold" at 2:27 a.m. based on cell phone records.
Roberts agreed she told a grand jury in April 2022 that she heard Read ask McCabe to make the Google search, but she later told Massachusetts State Police investigators that she did not personally hear that.
"I did not hear her ask that. I was told she (McCabe) was asked that," Roberts said on Wednesday.
Jackson, however, read what Roberts told the grand jury: "At one point she (Read) asked her (McCabe) to Google hypothermia and how long — Google hypothermia."
Roberts explained she told the grand jury that statement because she wrote out a timeline of events with McCabe before speaking to investigators. Roberts denied that McCabe influenced her testimony, however.
'Not an Earth-shattering score'
Asked whether Wednesday's testimony rose to potential perjury, Lu said, "No, that is not perjury."
"I wish the defense all the luck, but that is not an Earth-shattering score," Lu said. "If I were analyzing legal merits, I would hope that the defense has more than that."
The retired judge said that Roberts made some mistakes during her testimony, but pointed out that she likely does not have meaningful experience in courtrooms.
He said she seemed eager in trying to convict Read, but added that in civil or criminal cases, "it's a terrible idea" to jointly come up with timeline with another witness.
"She shouldn't have done that," Lu said. "If she's losing sleep for claims of perjury, (however) they should sleep well," since he said there needs to be more than her misstatement for perjury.
Another legal expert, Daniel Medwed, is a professor at Northeastern University. He said he could not weigh in on Roberts's specific testimony, but described perjury more broadly.
"Accidents, mistakes, or slip-ups about minor things typically don't rise to the level of perjury," Medwed said.
Cases of perjury in Massachusetts
The Worcester County man convicted on a single count of perjury last year, Jonathan Lind, was convicted of lying to a grand jury investigating the death of Brandon Chicklis. He was sentenced to seven to nine years in prison.
Lind's girlfriend, Julia Enright, was convicted of killing Chicklis and disposing of his body after she stabbed him to death in an Ashburnham treehouse in 2018.
After killing Chicklis, Enright enlisted Lind's help in disposing of the body. The pair wrapped Chicklis in trash bags and drove his body to Rindge, New Hampshire, where they dumped him in a wooded area along the side of Route 119.
Prosecutors said at trial that Lind failed to tell the grand jury about his role in disposing of Chicklis' body.
In 1997, Suzanna D'Amour , a woman from South Hadley, was convicted of perjury and sentenced to 10-12 years in prison in connection with a plot she hatched to kill her husband to collect a $3.3 million life insurance policy. The killer, Alex Rankins, was convicted and sentenced to a life sentence.
D'Amour was convicted of lying to a grand jury about communications she had with Rankins. "Knowing that Rankins was the prime suspect in her husband's murder, the defendant lied about the true nature of her relationship with Rankins to hinder the investigation of the murder of her husband," according to court filings.
Lu said the D'Amour is a good example of a perjury case because it describes the "materiality requirement," meaning it had meaningful consequences.
"(It) gives a good feel for the gravity of the alleged crime to satisfy materiality and constitute perjury," Lu said. '(It) shows that in D'Amour, there were false statements about communications with a witness made to avoid a prosecution for murder. Yikes."
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident causing injury or death in connection with O'Keefe's death.
Norfolk County prosecutors say Read struck O'Keefe with her SUV while driving intoxicated and then fled the scene in January 2022.
Read's lawyers contend that her SUV never struck O'Keefe, and on Tuesday, Jackson said, "There was no collision," and repeated it three times to emphasize for the jury.
Read's trial continues Friday with testimony and a site visit where O'Keefe's body was found.
Here's a recap of Thursday's testimony.
Karen Read murder case
Read the original article on MassLive .
Read the original article on MassLive .
