A high-stakes hearing in the murder prosecution of Karen Read, the Mansfield woman accused of backing her SUV into her boyfriend and leaving him for dead in Canton during a blizzard in 2022, is scheduled for Thursday in Norfolk Superior Court, where a judge is slated to hear arguments on defense motions to dismiss the charges and to disqualify the district attorney’s office from the case.
The hearing is scheduled for 3 p.m. in the Dedham courthouse before Judge Beverly J. Cannone, according to legal filings.
Attorneys for Read, 43, recently filed the motions, which Cannone ordered sealed on Jan. 8, records show.
Cannone is also scheduled to hear arguments on a separate defense motion to unseal correspondence between Norfolk District attorney Michael W. Morrissey’s office and federal prosecutors, who are reviewing law enforcement’s handling of the Read case.
On Friday, Acting US attorney Joshua S. Levy’s office informed Cannone that federal prosecutors “do not object” to making the letters public, court records show. Federal prosecutors haven’t commented publicly on their review of the investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death.
Prosecutors allege that she ran over her boyfriend John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, outside the Canton home of a fellow police officer early on Jan. 29, 2022, after a night of drinking. The state medical examiner’s office determined O’Keefe, 46, died from multiple head injuries and hypothermia.
Attorneys for Read assert that O’Keefe was beaten in the basement of the Canton home and that the family’s dog, a German shepherd, injured O’Keefe’s right arm during the struggle. Prosecutors have dismissed the assertion as baseless.
Computer forensic experts for Read’s defense have said that a Google search was performed on a witness’s phone at 2:27 a.m. at the Canton residence for “hos [sic] long to die in cold” and subsequently deleted, legal filings show.
Prosecutors say the witness used Google for a search about her daughter’s basketball team just before 2:30 a.m. and used that same tab to search for information about hypothermia at Read’s request when they came upon O’Keefe’s body hours later.
Read’s claims of innocence have been championed by Aidan Kearney, a controversial blogger known as Turtleboy who currently faces charges of intimidating witnesses in the case. He also faces a domestic assault charge in a separate case and is currently in custody.
In an interview last month, Morrissey said he was mystified as to why federal prosecutors and the Boston office of the FBI had taken the “extraordinary step” of conducting an inquiry into the Read prosecution.
“They don’t have any jurisdiction over a state murder trial, so this is an extraordinary step on their part,” Morrissey said. “I’m not worried because I have the utmost confidence in what we’ve done and what people have told us.”
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report. This breaking news story will be updated when more information is released.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
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