Karen Read now faces civil suit as well as murder charge in police officer boyfriend’s death

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — The household of the police officer boyfriend Karen Learn is accused of killing by hitting him together with her automobile and leaving him to die within the snow has filed a wrongful dying lawsuit in opposition to her and two bars the place that they had been ingesting that night time.

The lawsuit blames the dying of John O’Keefe on Learn, and in addition on what it describes because the bars’ negligence by persevering with to serve drinks to her regardless of indicators she was drunk. It says the primary bar served her seven alcoholic drinks in about 90 minutes the night time of Jan. 28, 2022, and that Learn carried the final drink into the second bar, the place she was served a shot and a combined alcoholic drink inside an hour.

The lawsuit doesn’t say how a lot alcohol O’Keefe was served that night time earlier than he acquired into Learn’s SUV.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Plymouth Superior Court docket in Massachusetts by Paul O’Keefe on behalf of his household and his brother’s property names Learn, the Waterfall Bar & Grill and C.F. McCarthy’s as defendants. It asks for a jury trial.

Calls to Learn’s legal professionals looking for touch upon the civil go well with weren’t instantly returned on Tuesday. An individual who answered the telephone on the Waterfall mentioned the homeowners had been unavailable, and one other at C.F. McCarthy’s declined remark.

Learn has pleaded not responsible and awaits a Jan. 27 retrial on costs of second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorcar beneath the affect and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. Her two-month felony trial resulted in July when the choose declared a mistrial after jurors mentioned they had been deadlocked. The choose dismissed arguments that jurors later mentioned that they had unanimously agreed Learn wasn’t responsible on the fees of homicide and leaving the scene.

After the bar-hopping, Learn, 44, a former adjunct professor at Bentley Faculty, dropped off O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, outdoors the Canton residence of one other police officer. His physique was discovered within the entrance yard. An post-mortem discovered O’Keefe died of hypothermia and blunt power trauma.

Learn’s legal professionals argued that O’Keefe was killed inside the house and that these concerned selected to border her as a result of she was a “handy outsider.”

The lawsuit says Learn and O’Keefe had been arguing and that she knew she had hit him together with her SUV earlier than returning to his residence. It alleges that she awakened his 14-year-old niece a number of hours later saying that one thing had occurred to O’Keefe and that he might need been hit by her or a snow plow.