Aidan Kearney, the blogger behind the Turtleboy website and social media accounts, appeared in court Wednesday on multiple charges amid a special prosecutor’s investigation.
It’s just the latest twist in a case that has drawn national attention. Karen Read, 42, of Mansfield, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. She is accused of backing her SUV into O’Keefe in January and leaving him to die in the snow outside a home in Canton.
The case is set to go to trial in March, though “Dateline” is already working on an episode about the saga.
Protesters believe that a cover-up is hiding who really killed O’Keefe, and they have been making their voices heard at public protests, rallies, Canton Select Board meetings and online.
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Kearney is among the people who have led that charge. A longtime presence in the Massachusetts news scene, he has been reporting on the Read case and rallying supporters who believe she has been wrongly accused. Special prosecutor Kenneth Mello said in court Thursday that Kearney has written at least 164 articles about the case.
On Wednesday, Kearney was charged with six counts of witness intimidation and one count of conspiracy. He pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance bail, with conditions that he stay away from contacting any of the victims in the case, including Juliana Nagle, Christopher and Colin Albert, Michael and Elizabeth Proctor, and Jennifer and Matthew McCabe. If he violates those conditions, he would be subject to incarceration for up to 90 days without bail.
Aidan Kearney, aka Turtle Boy, sits behind William and Janet Read, Karen Read’s parents, as Karen Read appears in court on Sept. 15, 2023. (Photo by Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
In court Thursday, Mello, the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the alleged witness intimidation, outlined the series of events that led to the charges against Kearney: