Karen Read is seeking to delay a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of her Boston police officer boyfriend until her criminal trial in connection with his death is done.
Karen Read sits in court

The lawsuit filed last month blames the death of John O’Keefe on Read, and also on what it describes as negligence by bars that continued to serve drinks to her despite signs she was drunk. It says the first bar served her seven alcoholic drinks in about 90 minutes the night of Jan. 28, 2022, and that Read carried the last drink into the second bar, where she was served a shot and a mixed alcoholic drink within an hour.

Read’s attorneys on Wednesday filed a motion to delay a trial on the lawsuit until after her criminal trial. Read is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him for dead in a January 2022 snowstorm. Her two-month trial ended in July when a judge declared a mistrial, and a second trial is scheduled for Jan. 27.

“A stay is appropriate here, where proceeding with this civil action at the same time as the criminal action will adversely affect Ms. Read’s Fifth Amendment rights and her ability to vigorously defend herself from criminal prosecution,” her lawyers wrote in the motion, adding that her requested stay is “minimal and not prejudicial” since the wrongful death lawsuit is not expected to be finished until at least August 2027.

But an attorney for O’Keefe’s brother, Paul, and other relatives who filed the lawsuit oppose any delays and suggested the reliance on the Fifth Amendment ignored the fact she has has spoken publicly about her case several times to the media and will be subject of at least one upcoming documentary.

The lawsuit filed in Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts by Paul O’Keefe on behalf of his family and his brother’s estate names Read, the Waterfall Bar & Grill and C.F. McCarthy’s as defendants. It asks for a jury trial.

Read has pleaded not guilty and awaits a Jan. 27 retrial on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Her two-month criminal trial ended in July when the judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they were deadlocked. The judge dismissed arguments that jurors later said they had unanimously agreed Read wasn’t guilty on the charges of murder and leaving the scene.

After the bar-hopping, Read — a former adjunct professor at Bentley College — dropped off O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, outside the Canton home of another police officer. His body was found in the front yard. An autopsy found O’Keefe died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.

Read’s lawyers argued that O’Keefe was killed inside the home and that those involved chose to frame her because she was a “convenient outsider.”

The lawsuit says Read and O’Keefe had been arguing and that she knew she had hit him with her SUV before returning to his home. It alleges that she woke up his 14-year-old niece several hours later saying that something had happened to O’Keefe and that he might have been hit by her or a snow plow.

Ohio's Supreme Court has declined to reconsider an appeal by a former high school cheerleader charged with killing and burying her newborn baby.

The court declined in February to hear Brooke Skylar Richardson's appeal after a lower court ruled doctors can testify in the Warren County case. The state Supreme Court declined Wednesday to reconsider the appeal.

Richardson's attorneys wanted prosecutors barred from presenting testimony from an obstetrics-gynecology practice's staff, citing physician-patient privilege.

A lower court ruled public interest in detecting crimes to protect society outweighed doctor-patient privilege in the case.

Prosecutors say the now 19-year-old buried the full-term baby shortly after giving birth in 2017.

She has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder.

Richardson's attorney, Charles H. Rittgers, says the defense is prepared to go to trial.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady could again be facing a four-game suspension for the scandal known as Deflategate after federal appeals court judges spent time Thursday shredding some of his union's favorite arguments for dismissal.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan gave a players' union lawyer a tough time, with Circuit Judge Denny Chin even saying evidence of ball tampering was "compelling, if not overwhelming," and there was evidence to support a finding that Brady "knew about it, consented to it, encouraged it."  

"How do we as appellate judges reviewing an arbitrator's decision second-guess the four-game suspension?" Chin asked attorney Jeffrey Kessler of the NFL Players Association.

The appeals court did not immediately rule, but it seemed to lean heavily at times against the union's arguments, raising the prospect that the suspension Brady was supposed to start last September before a judge nullified it may begin next season instead.

The appeals panel seemed receptive to the NFL's argument that it was fair for Commissioner Roger Goodell to severely penalize one of the game's greatest quarterbacks after concluding he tarnished the game by impeding the league's investigation into deflated footballs, including destroying a cellphone containing nearly 10,000 messages. The league had concluded that deflated balls were used when the Patriots routed the Indianapolis Colts at the January 2015 AFC championship game before they went on to win the Super Bowl.

A lawyer for convicted Jamaican reggae star Buju Banton said Tuesday that a U.S. federal appellate court agreed to a new hearing on his latest appeal.

The Grammy-winning singer is serving a 10-year sentence for convictions on cocaine conspiracy and trafficking charges stemming from a 2009 arrest that followed a sting operation. He was convicted in 2011 after his first trial in 2010 ended with jurors deadlocked.

In an email, attorney Charles Ogletree said the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta had agreed to hear oral arguments on the case.

"Mr. Buju Banton was pleased to learn that the 11th Circuit granted a new hearing of his appeal. We too are looking forward to the appellate argument," said Ogletree, a Harvard University law professor who took over Banton's case in February.

In 2012, a panel of the appellate court upheld Banton's convictions. His former defense lawyer had argued that a government informant improperly entrapped the singer.

Broadcasters anticipating a major constitutional ruling on the government's authority to regulate what can be shown and said on the airwaves instead won only the smallest of Supreme Court victories Thursday.

The justices unanimously threw out fines and other penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television airwaves.

Forgoing a broader constitutional ruling, however, the court concluded only that broadcasters could not have known in advance that obscenities uttered during awards show programs on Fox stations and a brief display of nudity on an episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue" could give rise to penalties. ABC and 45 affiliates had been hit with proposed fines totaling nearly $1.24 million.

A jury should decide whether Nicollette Sheridan's character was unfairly written out of the hit show "Desperate Housewives," a judge ruled Tuesday.

With the actress looking on, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White tossed a couple of Sheridan's claims but said there was enough of a dispute about what led to her ouster for the case to go to trial next month.

Sheridan sued ABC and "Housewives" creator and executive producer Marc Cherry in April 2010, claiming he struck her during a fight in September 2008 and subjected her to sexual and other harassment.

Adam Levin, an attorney for the network and Cherry, argued Tuesday that the decision to kill off Sheridan's character, Edie Britt, was made months before her argument with the show executive. He said the decision was made by Cherry and a small group in May 2008 and kept from others on the show to avoid ruining the surprise.

Sheridan's attorney, Mark Baute, disagreed and said the network's justification that it was a cost-cutting move didn't make sense since Sheridan's character was killed off in a car accident in the middle of the season and she was still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on her contract.

Michael Jackson's father was "grievously wronged" by a probate court that decided last year not to let him try to replace the administrators of his son's estate, an attorney argued Wednesday.

The arguments by attorney Brian Oxman, who represents Joe Jackson, were heard by a three-judge panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal after a probate judge ruled last November that Joe Jackson did not have standing to intervene in the matter.

The appeals panel did not issue a ruling but did question the legal steps Joe Jackson had taken after being left out of his son's will and whether the moves warranted revisiting the challenge to the administrators.

Associate Justice Laurie D. Zelon asked why Joe Jackson had withdrawn a petition to receive a monthly stipend from the estate before the probate court had a chance to rule on the request.

Oxman said the petition had seemed duplicative after Joe Jackson filed a wrongful death lawsuit in June against a doctor who has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of the pop star.