Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
Federal grand juror in Karen Read case pleads guilty to leak
Jessica Leslie, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal contempt.
A Dracut woman who purportedly served on the Karen Read federal grand jury pleaded guilty Monday to leaking information from the secretive proceedings.
Jessica Leslie, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal contempt, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. Under the terms of her plea deal, Leslie faces a proposed sentence of “one day, deemed served,” meaning she will avoid prison time if a judge accepts the recommendation.
Previously:
Her attorney, Keith Halpern, declined to comment on the hearing. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani scheduled sentencing for Sept. 26.
Prosecutors say Leslie disclosed sealed grand jury information on various dates between August 2022 and March 2024, including witnesses’ names, the substance of their testimony, and other evidence. Speaking in court Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Paruti explained the FBI launched an investigation after another woman posted detailed information to social media on Jan. 26, 2024, about a federal indictment that was still under seal, according to The Boston Globe.
Advertisement:
While Paruti didn’t specify the indictment in question, the Globe reported the case involved allegations that several Massachusetts State Police troopers took bribes in exchange for passing scores on commercial driving tests. Paruti said the same grand jury convened again Feb. 1 last year to hear evidence “in an unrelated investigation that is no longer active,” according to the Globe, which previously reported Leslie was among the grand jurors in a since-closed federal probe of Read’s case.
Read, 45, was acquitted last month of murder and manslaughter charges in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. While prosecutors alleged Read drunkenly backed her SUV into O’Keefe and left him to die in a blizzard, her lawyers maintained she was framed in a law enforcement coverup. Federal prosecutors dug into the state’s handling of the case as part of a secretive probe that officially ended earlier this year with no charges or arrests announced.
Advertisement:
According to Paruti, Leslie told FBI agents she was “good friends” with the woman who posted about the proceedings, and investigators uncovered text messages between the two in which Leslie identified witnesses from the two investigations and discussed the substance of their testimony, per the Globe.
Leslie acknowledged in court Monday that she’d been informed it was a crime to leak information about the grand jury proceedings and had willfully and deliberately violated those instructions, the newspaper reported. The criminal contempt charge carries a maximum penalty of “any term of years in prison,” as well as five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Be civil. Be kind.
Read our full community guidelines.