Karen Read sues Massachusetts police, alleges corruption and bigotry in probe

Karen Read has turned her acquittal into a new legal fight, filing a lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton Police Department that casts her case as a test of whether local law enforcement crossed the line from aggressive investigation into institutional bias and corruption.

Read, 46, said in an interview with ABC News that she is on a “crusade” to expose corruption, bigotry and misogyny in two Massachusetts police departments she says framed her for murder. She added, “I have to make some good come of the pain,” saying she has learned about “the underbelly of these institutions” and feels compelled to act on what she found.

The complaint was filed Thursday, June 5, 2026, nearly a year after Read was acquitted of murdering Boston police officer John O’Keefe. Prosecutors had accused her of hitting O’Keefe with her car outside another officer’s home and leaving him to die in a blizzard in January 2022. Read maintained the collision never happened.

Her criminal case became one of the most closely watched in Massachusetts. The first trial ended in a hung jury. The second ended with acquittals on second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene after an accident resulting in death. Read was convicted only of operating under the influence of liquor and sentenced to one year of probation, the standard penalty for a first-time offense.

The new lawsuit seeks far more than a personal vindication. It alleges that Read lost her job, suffered reputational damage, spent millions of dollars on legal fees and endured serious emotional and physical distress. It also says former Massachusetts State Police Officer Michael Proctor and former Canton Police Officer Sean Goode were “misogynist bigots” who ran a conflicted and corrupt investigation.

The complaint points to allegedly offensive text messages involving women, Black Americans, Asian Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Arabs and LGBTQ people. Read said those messages show more than crude language, arguing they reveal how Proctor thinks and how he sees people who are not like him.

Proctor’s attorney pushed back, saying the focus on anything other than Read’s own conduct was predictable and noting that his client’s personal life had already been reviewed by investigators, a grand jury and the district attorney.

The filing arrives amid fresh fallout for the police departments involved. CBS Boston reported that Goode resigned from Canton police two days before the lawsuit was filed amid an internal affairs investigation by an outside investigator, and that the review will go to town officials and the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. CBS also reported that Proctor was fired in part over crude texts about Read, including one that said, “Hopefully she kills herself,” and that thousands of later-found messages on his phone included racial slurs and other offensive language.

WBZ legal analyst Jennifer Roman described the lawsuit as “a public reckoning,” and that may be the central question now: whether Read’s civil case surfaces systemic misconduct, or simply extends a criminal saga that has already split public opinion across Massachusetts.