Karen Read has filed an 87-page civil lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and the town of Canton, alleging systemic misconduct and negligence in the investigation that led to her prosecution.
The suit, filed in Bristol County Superior Court, argues that Read’s acquittal last June exposed “an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations.”
The complaint names ex-State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in her criminal case, and former Canton Police Sgt. Sean Goode, who responded to the crime scene and testified at her first trial.
Dozens of pages in the filing are devoted to text messages, recordings, and other communications the suit says demonstrate racist, sexist, and derogatory conduct by both men.
Among the messages cited, Proctor allegedly referred to Read as a “whack job” and wrote that he hoped she would kill herself, while also making antisemitic remarks including that “Hitler was really on to something.”
Proctor also purportedly wrote that there were “[t]oo many Jews [in Sharon],” adding, “We really should keep them in a concentration camp.”
Goode is also alleged to have sent crude messages, including one that derided Boston Mayor Michelle Wu as a “little [expletive],” and another that described a young woman allegedly killed by a former Stoughton detective as “borderline retarded.”
Read’s lawsuit contends that both Canton and the State Police knew or should have known about the biases held by the two men, whom the suit characterizes as “virulent bigots.”
The Massachusetts State Police trial board previously found Proctor guilty of sending crude and defamatory text messages about Read while leading the investigation, resulting in his termination from the force.
State Police Superintendent Col. Geoffrey Noble issued a statement calling Proctor’s messages “racist, sexist and abhorrent,” saying they supported his decision to fire the former trooper, while noting the investigation predated his tenure.
Goode resigned earlier this week amid an ongoing internal affairs probe into separate allegations of misconduct connected to his conduct during the Read investigation.
Norfolk County prosecutors had originally charged Read, 46, with second-degree murder for allegedly backing her SUV into Boston police officer John O’Keefe in a drunken rage in the early hours of January 29, 2022.
Read’s defense attorneys argued throughout the criminal trial that she had been framed, and that O’Keefe was fatally beaten inside a Canton home and his body was later moved to the front lawn.
The Town of Canton responded to the filing by stating it has “the utmost faith and confidence in the new leadership of Canton Police Department” and noted the department has made significant recent progress, including implementing recommendations from an outside audit.
The civil action is the latest in a series of state and federal lawsuits tied to the case, and seeks unspecified financial damages from the named defendants.
