The girlfriend of a police officer who died after he was found battered and hypothermic on a suburban Boston roadside is out on $50,000 bail after pleading not guilty to vehicular homicide and manslaughter.
Karen Read, of Mansfield, is accused in Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe's death and striking him with her car in Canton about Jan. 28, prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
Read, 41, allegedly asked a witness: "Did I hit him, did I hit him?" and investigators said they seized her vehicle and found a shattered tail ight and other evidence of O'Keefe's injury, NBC News affiliate NBC 10 Boston reported.
"My client had no criminal intent, she loved this man," her attorney, David Yanetti, said in court Wednesday.
On the Friday night before he died, O'Keefe, 46, was allegedly drinking with Read, his girlfriend, in Canton before Read drove O'Keefe to a house party at the address where he was found near-death the next morning, NBC Boston reported.
Read is now on leave from her position as an equity analyst at Fidelity Investments, the company said in a statement, declining to comment further.
Bentley University, where Read is an adjunct lecturer, said in a statement: "The university cannot comment further on an active investigation. Our thoughts go out to Officer O’Keefe’s family and loved ones."
The Norfolk District Attorney's office was closed Friday due to inclement weather and they did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
David Traub, a spokesperson for the Norfolk County District Attorney, said that the DA does not "identify witnesses in investigations."
In a statement, David Yanetti, Read's attorney, said he is "confident that my client will be vindicated when the true facts come out."
"My client is relieved to be home but is distraught and devastated while continuing to mourn the loss of the man she loved," Yanetti said.
"The notion that she would intentionally do anything to hurt him is ridiculous. I find it hard to believe that a DA’s Office would present this case to a grand jury as manslaughter."
