Karen Read trial reveals flirty text messages with ATF agent behind boyfriend’s back

Legal experts are handing Karen Read’s defense team the win for Friday’s heated cross-examination of Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik – who returned for his second day on the stand as prosecutors look to convince the jury that Read fatally struck her boyfriend, Boston cop John O’Keefe, and left him to die in a blizzard in January 2022.

During hours of cross-examination from defense attorney Alan Jackson, the homicide investigator was asked to read a long string of text messages exchanged between Read and Brian Higgins, a Canton-based ATF agent with whom she was flirting behind O’Keefe’s back. 

Having Bukhenik read the texts allows the defense to introduce hearsay statements into the case, according to Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts defense attorney who is following the case closely. They also raise questions about the integrity of the investigation, something the defense has aimed to discredit entirely.

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“They are being entered not for the truth of what is contained in them but to show that they existed,” she told Fox News Digital. “That is important because the defense wants to be able to argue that these messages existed, and did or did not the investigation consider them as a lead?  Wouldn’t the knowledge of a romantic flirtation between Karen Read and Brian Higgins create the possibility of conflict between Brian Higgins and John O’Keefe?”

She said that both sides performed well Friday and credited Hank Brennan, the special prosecutor brought in to handle Read’s retrial, with devising a new strategy after the first trial ended in a mistrial. But she said the defense won out slightly.

“Great lawyering on both sides today. Hank Brennan’s new trial strategy indicates he won’t need to call upon Brian Albert or Brian Higgins or Michael Proctor,” she said. “They have stretched the witness to the max the last few days.  Alan Jackson appears to have worn the witness down and there was damaging testimony regarding the handling of evidence. Overall, I felt the defense achieved more of their goals today.”

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Sgt. Bukhenik spent hours on the stand Friday, reading through flirty text messages between Read and Brian Higgins, an ATF agent and potential love interest whom she contacted behind O’Keefe’s back.

The Ukraine native, who immigrated to the U.S. when he was nine and joined the Marine Corps after 9/11, often sparred with Jackson about semantics, asking for a copy of Webster’s Dictionary at one point, telling the court that English was his “third language.”

Frequent objections from the special prosecutor, Hank Brennan, also interrupted the proceedings as Judge Beverly Cannone repeatedly called the sides to the bench for off-camera discussions.

At one point, Jackson replayed video shown earlier of Read backing out of O’Keefe’s garage the morning he was found dead. The defense clip included a layover of a box with a zoomed-in view of O’Keefe’s vehicle, which was parked outside. It appeared to bounce in place as Read neared it with her rear bumper – the same one later found with a broken taillight.

“The prosecution looks like it’s trying to hide the truth with all objections,” said Linda Kenney Baden, a prominent East Coast defense attorney who is closely following the case on her “Justice Served” podcast. 

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Another damning moment, she said, was when Bukhenik admitted that no pieces of Read’s broken taillight were recovered until after her vehicle – the alleged murder weapon – was parked inside the sallyport at Canton Police Headquarters.