Juror Turned Defender: A Karen Read Plot Twist No One Saw Coming
A fired state trooper. A hung jury. And now, a juror turned defense attorney. The Karen Read case just added another chapter that feels more like an episode of Law & Order than real life.
Just days before Karen Read is set to stand trial for the second time, a new name showed up on her defense team roster: Victoria George. She’s not just any attorney. She’s a Massachusetts lawyer who sat through the first trial as an alternate juror—and walked away so disturbed by what she saw, she switched sides. Literally.
George filed her notice of appearance on Wednesday. She’s a Princeton grad who earned her law degree from Northeastern in 2020, and according to an interview she did with Vanity Fair, the first trial shook her faith in the Massachusetts justice system. Her words, not mine.
“If as a lawyer I was too afraid to stand up for what I believed in, who would?” she said. That’s not just courtroom rhetoric—that’s a real quote from a lawyer who once sat quietly in the jury box, now sitting beside the defendant.
Karen Read, 45, is facing charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a deadly accident after her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, was found dead in the snow outside a fellow officer’s house in January 2022. Prosecutors say Read hit him with her Lexus SUV during a drunken argument and drove away. She says she’s being framed—and that the real killer was at the after-party that O’Keefe never made it home from.
The first trial ended in a deadlock. A mistrial. Jurors couldn’t agree, and frankly, who could blame them? The case was messy, the timeline was fuzzy, and then there was the lead investigator—Michael Proctor.
Proctor, a Massachusetts State Trooper at the time, led the investigation against Read. But last week, he was fired. Why? Well, let’s just say his texts didn’t exactly reflect professionalism. In court, messages were read aloud where Proctor called Read a “wack job,” joked about hoping she’d kill herself, and fantasized about finding nude photos on her phone. You don’t need a JD to figure out that’s going to be a problem when your job is supposed to be objective law enforcement.
George didn’t hold back when talking about Proctor’s involvement, either. “Based on his own words, he had a pretty strong personal bias against the person in the defendant’s chair,” she said. “How do you ever trust the evidence coming from his investigation?”
And let’s be clear—this isn’t some PR stunt from Read’s defense team. Legal experts are chiming in, too. David Gelman, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney, said this is the first time he’s ever heard of a juror becoming part of the defense in a retrial. And he thinks it bodes well for Read.
“Usually retrials don’t go well – that’s why a hung jury is a win for defendants,” Gelman said. “Since the last case, you have an officer involved who has been terminated for bad conduct, evidence will be suppressed that would benefit the prosecutor, and there is more media attention that makes Read look better. The prosecutor has screwed the pooch.”
This time, the case will be prosecuted by Hank Brennan—a special prosecutor with a heavyweight background, best known for defending mobster Whitey Bulger. And that’s not the only legal battle Read is facing. O’Keefe’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her as well.
But back to George, because that’s the wild card here. She wasn’t some high-profile hire or flashy courtroom shark. She sat quietly, listened to every word, and when the trial ended in mistrial, she didn’t walk away. She switched sides.
Karen Read’s second trial starts today (Tuesday). And now, the defense team includes someone who not only knows how the first jury thought—but knows how the system works from both sides of the bar.
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