Lawyers for former Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor wrote in a court filing Friday that he denies participating in a conspiracy to frame Karen Read for the death of her boyfriend and claimed that his actions as a law enforcement officer were protected by qualified immunity.
Proctor is the first of the eight defendants to respond to the lawsuit. Read has sued over supposed civil rights violations during the criminal investigation and prosecutions of her. The case is pending in federal court for the District of Massachusetts.
Along with Proctor, Read has sued two of his bosses, Yuriy Bukhenik and Brian Tully, as well as five other people who testified against her: Brian and Nicole Albert, Jennifer and Matt McCabe and Brian Higgins. All five were with Read and her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, in the hours leading up to his death.
In her lawsuit, Read repeats the claim she made during her criminal trials: that Proctor, the lead investigator into O’Keefe’s death, conspired with the Alberts, McCabes and Higgins to frame Read for his death because of the families’ connections to law enforcement. Brian Albert was a Boston Police officer and Higgins worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Read has long claimed O’Keefe died inside Brian and Nicole Albert’s Canton home. She was accused of running him over with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow.
For his part, Proctor denies most of the claims brought by Read in the complaint.
“Denied that Proctor shielded the House Defendants by intentionally sidestepping fundamental investigatory procedures,” his answer reads. Proctor also denies there was an “unwritten rule of ‘protecting their own.’”
Proctor was fired from the State Police last March for his conduct in the Read investigation. In the early stages of the investigation, Proctor sent demeaning text messages about Read, calling her a “whack job (expletive),” saying she “leaks poo,” and joking about searching her phone for naked photos. He also said he wished she would kill herself.
The filing says the texts “speak for themselves.”
In the filing, Proctor asserts a number of affirmative defenses — arguing that even if Read’s claims are true, he can’t be held responsible. Among them is that he acted “in good faith, without malice and without corruption” during the investigation.
Proctor also claims his actions were protected by qualified immunity — a legal doctrine protecting law enforcement and government officials from lawsuits such as Read’s unless they violated a “clearly established” statutory or constitutional right.
“At no time was Proctor’s conduct extreme, outrageous or beyond the bounds of decency,” his answer reads.
Proctor dubs Read’s complaint “frivolous” and asks a judge to dismiss the lawsuit entirely. He also seeks a jury trial on all claims that could go to trial.
Responses from the rest of the defendants in the civil suit are due on Jan. 23.
Before filing the civil rights suit, Read was hit with a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the O’Keefe family in 2024 after her first criminal trial ended in a mistrial. The case was largely paused until Read’s acquittal last June.
A hearing on that lawsuit is scheduled for early February. Read’s lawyers have expressed interest in potentially combining the two cases for trial.
