Karen Read’s lawyers file response to wrongful death lawsuit, say any damages caused by ‘third parties’

Lawyers for Karen Read on Tuesday filed a formal response to a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of John O’Keefe, her boyfriend who she was acquitted of killing.

In a 16-page filing in Plymouth Superior Court, Read’s attorneys denied the family’s allegations, which track closely with what prosecutors alleged during her criminal trial: that she fatally struck O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, with her SUV outside a Canton home early on Jan. 29, 2022, following a night of bar-hopping.

Her criminal lawyers argued at trial in Norfolk Superior Court that she was framed and that O’Keefe entered the property, owned at the time by a fellow Boston police officer, where he was fatally beaten and possibly mauled by a German Shepherd before his body was planted on the front lawn.

“To the extent that the Plaintiffs have suffered damages, all such damages claimed were caused by the acts and omissions of third parties for whom Ms. Read is not responsible,” her civil attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s response to the lawsuit.

Her first criminal trial ended last year in a hung jury, and she was acquitted at retrial in June on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death. She was convicted only of misdemeanor OUI and received a year’s probation.

The wrongful death suit alleges that Read “outrageously created a false narrative” after O’Keefe’s death.

O’Keefe was killed as a “direct and/or proximate cause of Read’s drunk driving” the complaint states.

The next hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for Nov. 21, records show. A civil trial date hasn’t been set.

Material from previous Globe coverage was used in this report.

Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.