June 2022 Email Shows Karen Read Conspiracy Allegations Were Circulating Early Inside Norfolk DA’s Office

Boston Herald \ Composite of file photos

A newly surfaced email I’ve obtained from June 14, 2022 raises more questions about what Norfolk County officials knew early in the Karen Read case, and how seriously they were taking allegations that later became central to the defense narrative.

The email chain begins with NBC reporter Dorian Geiger reaching out to David Traub, the Press Officer and Director of Communications for the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office. Geiger wrote that he had just spoken with Karen Read’s attorney, David Yannetti, and that Yannetti was accusing Norfolk County prosecutors and Boston Police of a “massive conspiracy” and an “apparent cover up” to shield other off-duty Boston Police officers who were allegedly on scene at the time of John O’Keefe’s death.

Geiger asked the DA’s office to formally respond to those allegations.

What happened next is what makes this email stand out.

Less than 40 minutes later, Traub forwarded the media request to several key figures, including Brian Tully, John Fanning, and Yuri Bukhenik. His message was short:

“Thought you might want to see this for yourself.”

That one sentence does not prove the allegations were true. It does not prove a conspiracy. It does not prove a cover-up.

But it does show that these allegations were not something that suddenly appeared much later in the case. They were being raised publicly, through media inquiries, as early as June 2022, just months after John O’Keefe died outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton.

That matters.

Because one of the major questions surrounding this case has always been when investigators, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials became aware of claims that others may have been involved, that the scene may not have been handled properly, or that certain people connected to the home were receiving unusual protection.

This email shows that, by June 14, 2022, those allegations were serious enough to be sent directly into the orbit of investigators and officials connected to the case.

The timing also raises important questions.

What did Norfolk County officials do with this information? Was the claim investigated objectively? Were the people allegedly connected to those claims questioned with the same intensity as Karen Read? Were phones, communications, location data, and relationships fully examined? Or was the theory dismissed because it came from the defense?

Again, this email alone is not proof of wrongdoing.

But it is evidence of awareness.

And awareness matters when reviewing how an investigation was handled.

If a reporter was already asking the DA’s office to respond to allegations of a conspiracy and cover-up in June 2022, then the public deserves to know what steps were taken after that request. Who reviewed the allegations? Who made the decision on how to respond? Were those concerns documented in the investigative file? Were they followed up on, or simply brushed aside?

This is why transparency is so important in the Karen Read case.

The public does not need spin. The public does not need selective explanations. The public needs the full record.

Because every document, every email, and every internal communication helps build a clearer picture of what happened behind the scenes, not just on the night John O’Keefe died, but in the months that followed, when the narrative of the case was still being shaped.

This June 2022 email may be short, but it points to a much larger issue:

The allegations that now define so much of this case were already being raised early on.

And the people in power knew about them.