The conduct of a former soldier of the State of Massachusetts who was fired for his management of Karen Read’s murder investigation took his new trial this week when defense lawyers spent hours roasting the former officer’s supervisor.
Sergeant of the Massachusetts State Police. Yuri Bukhenik acknowledged that he was also disciplined by accusations of misconduct linked to Michael Proctor, the agent of the case that administered the investigation into the death of the Boston police officer John O’Keefe. But the supervisor testified that the former soldier handled the investigation with “honor and integrity.”
“I think all human beings have prejudices,” Bukhenik said in a room in southeast Boston. “Especially in this case, they did not affect the result of the investigation.”
Proctor, who was fired after the READ defense team raised accusations of misconduct in his first judgment widely seen, has not testified in his new trial. It is not clear if you will.
Reading, 45, is accused of second -degree murder, homicide of motor vehicles while driving under the influence and leaves the scene of a collision causing death.
The first trial, which covered nine weeks and five days of jury’s deliberations, ended when the panel could not reach a unanimous verdict. This week he scored the third in his new trial.
More about Karen Read’s murder trial
The prosecutors claimed that Read was furious for its deteriorated relationship when he supported his SUV Lexus in O’Keefe, her two -year -old boyfriend, and left him dead outside the suburban house of a Boston police sergeant now retired, Brian Albert.
O’Keefe, 46, was found without responding in the courtyard of Albert shortly after 6 in the morning of January 29, 2022. He was later declared dead. The forensic doctor attributed his cause of death to hypothermia and trauma of the forceful force to the head.
Read has affirmed his innocence. Her lawyers have affirmed that she is the victim of a conspiracy, O’Keefe was probably beaten inside Albert’s house, bitten by the German pastor of the family and dragged outside, they said, and a cover -up that sought to frame her in her death.
Defensor lawyers have accused Proctor of manipulating evidence and conducting a biased investigation. He was impairedly discharged in March after a review by state police officers discovered that he violated the agency’s rules when he sent derogatory messages about reading to friends, family and others, and when he shared sensitive and confidential details about the case with the personnel of non -application of the law.
At the trial, Princer acknowledged that his comments were “non -professional” and “dehumanized”, but said they did not affect the integrity of O’Kefe’s death. Proctor has not commented on his termination, but his family said that the decision to say goodbye “has unjustly exploited and the scapegoats one of his, a soldier with an intensive record of 12 years.”
Bukhenik was one of those who overcame text messages. While looking for the Read phone seven months after O’Kefe’s death, Proctor sent a group thread on one of Read’s lawyers, David Yannetti, and referred to reading with offensive language and said: “There are no naked so far.”
In other messages that did not include Bukhenik, Proctor said he expected Read to die from suicide and made derogatory comments about his medical condition. Reading was diagnosed with Chron’s disease.
Bukhenik testified that he was working on a traffic detail at the airport when the message came to his Apple Watch. Although Bukhenik responded with a thumb emoji up, he said, he didn’t look at the messages at that time.
Bukhenik was then disciplined about the accuracy of the Performance evaluation of Proctor, testified, and for not supervising it properly. He lost five days of vacation, he said, and remains a homicide investigator with the Massachusetts State Police.
According to defense lawyer Alan Jackson, Bukhenik said that while Proctor handled the investigation, he did not believe that the former soldier played an important role because he was only one of several soldiers assigned to the case and was not responsible for 51 percent or more of work.
When asked if he believed that the participation of proctor in the case contaminated the investigation, Bukhenik said no.
“The investigation was carried out with honor and integrity and the evidence pointed out in one direction,” he said.
