Karen Read scores major win as judge allows crash reconstruction testimony

Judge Beverly Cannone denied a motion Tuesday to block key defense experts from testifying in defense of Karen Read at her retrial on murder charges in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O'Keefe With dozens of text messages between experts at the ARCCA crash reconstruction firm and defense counsel unaccounted for and missed discovery deadlines Cannone declared she understood the prosecution's complaints but ruled against them anyway I understand comprehensively the commonwealth's argument the ambush that has been set upon here she reported However a defendant's right to a fair trial is paramount to everything So I'm going to allow the ARCCA spectators to testify I'm going to allow what I expect will be a very robust cross-examination Tuesday marked a week since opening statements but the experts' review is not expected to be finalized until May more than two weeks after the start of the trial Special prosecutor Hank Brennan called that unfair to the state but Cannone denied his motion to block the experts from testifying KAREN READ CRASH EXPERT ADMITS HE SENT NOTES TO DEFENSE BROKE SEQUESTRATION ORDER IN FIRST TRIALThe ARCCA experts are expected to bolster the defense declares that Read's SUV never collided with O'Keefe Read is charged with murder manslaughter and fleeing the scene for allegedly plowing into him with her Lexus and taking off leaving him for dead in a snowstorm She has pleaded not guilty Her first trial ended with a deadlocked jury last year Earlier in the day Jennifer McCabe a friend of O'Keefe's who was with him the night before he died and was with Read when she exposed him at a m in the snow during a nor'easter testified about her friendship with O'Keefe and the night before his death She is expected to return to the stand Wednesday Tuesday also saw continued testimony from Ian Whiffin a digital forensics expert who examined the phones of both O'Keefe and McCabe Based on location figures O'Keefe could've been inside Fairview Road during the early morning of Jan testified Ian Whiffin a digital forensics expert under cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Alessi KAREN READ'S AMBULANCE RIDE ADMISSION BECOMES FLASH POINT AT ND TRIALBut considering a number of other factors including Apple Physical condition figures phone battery temperature and a feature called Doppler related to Face ID activity his expert opinion is that O'Keefe came to a stop near the flagpole on the front lawn and did not move between roughly a m and a m SIGN UP TO GET TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTERIn one key exchange Alessi questioned Whiffin about a graphic that he included in his account on location facts that had not been shown to jurors as part of a timeline the prosecution went through Monday A feasible location radius exhibited O'Keefe's phone could have been inside the house at Fairview Road on the night he died KAREN READ SAYS SHE POURED EXTRA SHOTS INTO HER COCKTAILS BEFORE JOHN O'KEEFE'S DEATH Therefore over the next sparse hours according to your document the phone of John O'Keefe could be in the house correct Alessi urged Based on the low accuracy information yes Whiffin announced FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME ASSOCIATION ON XThe fuller picture allowed him to narrow that down he stated separately Alessi also took issue with tests Whiffin conducted by putting a phone in a freezer and outside in December which displayed steeper temperature drops than those recorded on O'Keefe's phone on Jan However Brennan pointed out that O'Keefe's body was considered to be on top of the phone when he was outside in the cold Whiffin also testified that McCabe's search for the phrase hos sic long to die in cold happened at a m after O'Keefe had been revealed and not at a m as the defense has argued He did a demonstration in the courtroom showing how a phone's database files could give the wrong timestamp alongside a Google search GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUBWhiffin testified that the timestamp is related to the time when McCabe opened a new tab in her phone's internet browser But no search was made at that time Instead the search came hours later in the same tab His testimony supported the prosecution's timeline The trial was expected to take six to eight weeks Tuesday marked the first full week since opening statements began on April Whiffin defended his timestamp findings and the change in Cellebrite solution noting that if he were wrong other forensic scientists would have spotted it and publicized their findings He also pointed to a similar circumstance in Europe that he declared involved the same browser tab timestamp discrepancy and was resolved the same way