Karen Read crash expert admits he sent notes to defense, broke sequestration order in first trial
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A crash reconstructionist whose testimony is expected to be key to Karen Read’s defense admitted on the stand Monday, without jurors present, that he sent notes to her team during the first trial and received information about prior testimony despite a sequestration order. 

Dr. Daniel Wolfe testified during the first trial that damage to Read’s SUV – the alleged murder weapon – was inconsistent in regard to a collision with John O’Keefe, the Boston police officer found dead on a colleague’s front lawn during a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022.

He took the stand again Monday as part of a contentious evidence hearing as special prosecutor Hank Brennan raised issues with delays in discovery a week into Read’s second murder trial; the first ended with a deadlocked jury.

He admitted to sharing talking points with the defense during the first trial, apparently violating a sequestration order by receiving information on prior witness testimony, and later discussing the case with her defense on the encrypted messaging app, Signal.

General view of a bar where Boston Police officer, John O'Keefe was out with Karen Read the night he was killed

The Waterfall Bar and Grill in Canton, Mass. (Richard Beetham for Fox News Digital)

Combined, they show O’Keefe stopped answering his phone shortly after 12:30 a.m. while near a flagpole outside the address, and it didn’t move again until he was discovered around 6:04 a.m.

Around that time, paramedics lifted his body onto a stretcher, and the battery temperature, no longer insulated beneath him, fell rapidly before heating up once it was picked up by another person.

Prosecutors used his testimony to shoot down a defense theory that O’Keefe was injured somewhere else and moved to where his remains were recovered the next morning.

Read has pleaded not guilty. Her defense argued in opening statements last week that her SUV never struck O’Keefe.

Prosecutors allege that after spending hours drinking, she backed into O’Keefe during a drunken argument outside the home, where other acquaintances were inside for an after-party, and drove away, leaving him to die in a snowstorm.

Whiffin is expected to return to the stand Tuesday for cross-examination at 9 a.m.

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