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Karen Read’s new lawyer, an alternate juror from her first trial, speaks out
“I waited for nearly a year after the mistrial, hoping the court system would work as intended to remedy some of the wrongs in this case,” Victoria Brophey George told Vanity Fair.
Karen Read is expanding her legal team ahead of her highly anticipated retrial, tapping a lawyer who previously served as an alternate juror during her first murder trial.
Victoria Brophey George filed a notice of appearance in the case Wednesday, less than a week before jury selection is set to begin. George previously shared a statement with WBZ publicly identifying herself as one of the jurors in Read’s first trial.
More on Karen Read:
As an alternate, George sat through weeks of testimony but did not deliberate on a potential verdict. The jury in Read’s first trial ultimately returned deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial last July.
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“I was a fair-minded juror who left this trial questioning the integrity of the system long before the defense filed a motion to dismiss with allegations of jury tampering,” George told WBZ. “It is the Read case itself — and the fact that it is still being brought — that has left many in Massachusetts wary, distrustful, and scared of our system.”
Judge Beverly Cannone denied Read’s motion to dismiss Tuesday.
Read, 45, is accused of drunkenly and deliberately backing her SUV into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, after a night of bar-hopping in January 2022. Read’s lawyers maintain she was framed in a vast coverup; they claim Read dropped O’Keefe off at a fellow Boston officer’s home in Canton, where he was attacked after walking inside for an afterparty.
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In an extensive interview with Vanity Fair published Wednesday, George indicated she was initially hesitant to speak out following Read’s first trial.
“I waited for nearly a year after the mistrial, hoping the court system would work as intended to remedy some of the wrongs in this case,” she told the magazine.
But according to Vanity Fair, George was compelled to come forward following comments from special prosecutor Hank Brennan, who recently suggested the defense team’s allegations of jury tampering question “the fabric of our entire judicial system.”
“Attorney Brennan implied that the defense was responsible for causing sentiments of distrust in the justice system simply by questioning inconsistencies, inconvenient facts, and missing evidence,” George told Vanity Fair. “If as a lawyer I was too afraid to stand up for what I believed in, who would?”
George was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 2021. According to her LinkedIn, she was most recently an associate at the Boston-based labor and employment law firm Morgan, Brown & Joy but left in August 2023.
Read George’s full interview with Vanity Fair.
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