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Karen Read, a woman who was acquitted of killing her police officer boyfriend last year, filed a lawsuit against Massachusetts State Police.
Explaining why she chose to take the legal steps against the city, Read called out the injustice on Friday, June 5.
During her appearance on TODAY with her two attorneys, Read said, "This was always our plan, that I had to save my own life first."
"I have continue fighting for justice. The acquittal is deserved, but the wrongs have not been completely righted," she added.
Read sued the Massachusetts State Police and the town of Canton on Thursday, alleging that misconduct and negligence led to her prosecution in the death in 2022 of John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer.
Her attorneys argued in the lawsuit that "an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot" was at the heart of two agencies that investigated O'Keefe's death, the State Police and the Canton Police Department.
The lawsuit comes after Read was acquitted last June of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.
She was convicted of a single charge, operating under the influence of liquor.
On Friday, Read's lawyer Alan Jackson explained that the goal of the lawsuit is to "bring to the light the institutional biases, the institutional corruption that permeates the Massachusetts law enforcement system".
Jackson said that the aim of the lawsuit was to expose the "corruption that is the DNA of the Massachusetts State Police and the Canton Police Department".
Read added that she believes O'Keefe was the "victim of this institutional corruption" among law enforcement.
About John O'Keefe's death
John O'Keefe, 46, was found dead outside the suburban home of another Boston police officer on the morning of January 29, 2022.
According to the medical examiner, the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, with hypothermia listed as a contributing factor.
Prosecutors alleged that Read was dropping O'Keefe off for a gathering at the other officer's home when, fuelled by intoxication and anger about the state of her deteriorating relationship, she reversed her Lexus SUV into O'Keefe and left him for dead.
Read vehemently rejected the allegations.
Her attorneys blamed officers, including Brian Albert, the now-retired police sergeant who was helping host the gathering at his Canton home for O'Keefe’s death.
During Read's first trial, her attorneys argued that Albert and others most likely killed O'Keefe during a fight and framed Read for his death.
The attorneys were barred from identifying the group as suspects in the second trial; however, after she was acquitted, Read filed a lawsuit accusing them of covering up O'Keefe’s death.
Describing the allegation as "false, defamatory, and without merit", the group filed a defamation suit against Read in April.
