Karen Read’s lawyers confirm they paid crash experts, but defended their handling of the witnesses

By Madalyn Jimiera

Karen Read’s lawyers admitted to paying two expert witnesses who testified during her first trial. The expert witnesses, crash reconstructionists from ARCCA Inc., were initially hired by federal authorities to investigate Read’s case. 

While it is not uncommon for lawyers to pay their expert witnesses, jurors in Read’s first trial were led to believe the ARCCA experts were working independently, according to special prosecutor Hank Brennan.

“The defense in the first trial attempted [to] — and successfully did — portray ARCCA witnesses as wholly independent, presented themselves as oblivious to the nuances of ARCCA, left the impression that there was no compensation, no bias, no collaboration,” Brennan alleged.

Read’s defense attorney, Robert Alessi, defended the defense team’s relations and communications with the expert witnesses, emphasizing that the experts’ opinions did not change after they issued their report last year. Furthermore, Alessi upholds that the company was only paid after the trial concluded in late July. 

In 2022, Read was accused of hitting her boyfriend and Boston Police officer, John O’Keefe, with her SUV after drinking and leaving him in a snowstorm. Her lawyers maintain that Read was framed as part of a larger coverup for law enforcement officers who they alleged were responsible for O’Keefe’s death. Read’s first trial ended with a hung jury last July, and she is due to stand trial again in April.