Karen Read, acquitted in the 2022 killing of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe, has filed a new lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton, accusing officers of bias revealed through years of alleged hateful, racist, a
Karen Read walked away from a courtroom with an acquittal in her pocket, but the fight didn’t end there. Almost a year after she was found not guilty of second-degree murder in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend. she has turned to the civil system—suing the Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton over how the investigation was run.
The lawsuit. filed by Read nearly one year after her criminal trial conclusion. is built around language that appeared in the case as the prosecution and defense battled over credibility and intent. Prosecutors said Read backed into John O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV in a drunken rage and left him to die in the snow outside a Canton. Massachusetts. home in January 2022. Read’s attorneys have said she was framed by police in an investigation marked by bias and incompetence.
In the statement announcing the new lawsuit. Read’s attorneys reiterated those claims. saying the Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police Department “negligently permitted virulent misogynists and bigots to target her.” The complaint asks the courts to treat the alleged conduct of officers involved in the investigation as contamination—something the agencies should have recognized and corrected long before O’Keefe’s death.
The allegations center on former state trooper Michael Proctor and former Canton police officer Sean Goode. accused of sending thousands of hateful. racist and sexist messages over the course of more than a decade. The lawsuit says many of the messages are quoted in the complaint and that the law enforcement agencies “knew or should have known” about Proctor and Goode’s alleged biases when they hired. trained. promoted. and supervised them.
Read’s complaint further alleges that Proctor and Goode “immediately targeted Read” because she was “an outsider and a female.” It claims their involvement “invariably and irredeemably contaminated” the investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
Proctor’s attorney, Matt Hamel, pushed back on that framing. “It is a matter of undisputed fact that anything Mr. Proctor did or said in his personal life, years before Officer O’Keefe was killed, had no bearing whatsoever on the investigation of Karen Read,” Hamel told NBC Boston.
The new lawsuit lands on top of a case that never stayed confined to one courtroom. Read’s first trial ended in a hung jury. drawing large crowds of spectators to the courthouse and turning into material for true crime podcasts. movies. and television shows. During that earlier trial, Proctor and Goode testified.
After the mistrial, Proctor was placed on unpaid leave in July 2024 and then fired in March 2025. Goode was placed on leave in late 2025, and resigned days before Read’s lawsuit was filed.
At the state level, Col. Geoffrey Noble, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, described Proctor’s comments as unacceptable. In a statement. Noble called the remarks “racist. sexist and abhorrent. ” adding that “These comments absolutely do not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within our ranks. ” and that they “underscore and fully support my decision to terminate Michael Proctor.”.
Canton’s response to Read’s lawsuit has been restrained. In a June 4 statement provided to the outlet. the Town of Canton declined to comment on the announcement of Read’s lawsuit. while saying the police department has made “significant strides” in recent years. The statement said the Town of Canton has “the utmost faith and confidence in the new leadership of Canton Police Department under Chief Michael Daniels. ” and it would “refute any broad-stroke characterizations about the brave and dedicated men and women who serve in the Department.”.
The text messages weren’t only the fuel for the new complaint; they were also part of the public record during Read’s second trial. Some of the lewd texts Proctor sent about Read during the investigation were read aloud during that trial. in which Read was convicted of operating a vehicle under the influence and sentenced to one year probation. The messages were also referenced in a lawsuit Read filed against Proctor. his supervisors. the town of Canton. and other witnesses in the case in November.
This time, Read’s civil case also sits alongside another legal fight. She is facing a civil wrongful death lawsuit brought by O’Keefe’s family members.
Taken together. the timeline shows how one investigation’s tone can ripple well beyond a verdict—into personnel decisions. public trust. and new court filings. In July 2024, Proctor’s placement on unpaid leave came after the mistrial; by March 2025, he was fired. Goode’s leave and resignation followed later. Now Read’s lawsuit is asking a court to connect those outcomes to what she argues the public already saw in the messages and what she says the agencies should have known earlier—long before John O’Keefe died and long before the evidence reached a jury.
As Read’s civil case proceeds. the core question won’t be limited to what happened on the night of January 2022. It will also be about what officers said to and about her in the years before. and what state and local agencies did—allegedly or effectively—when those communications could have been recognized and addressed.
Karen Read lawsuit Massachusetts State Police Town of Canton Michael Proctor Sean Goode John O’Keefe text messages police bias acquittal OWI conviction wrongful death