The Massachusetts State Police has agreed to pay Karen Read $100,000 to resolve a lawsuit she filed earlier this year.

 

Read sued the Massachusetts State Police and the town of Canton back in June, accusing both of misconduct and negligence in the investigation that prompted her prosecution in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend.

 

The lawsuit claimed Read’s acquittal last year revealed “an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations.” She accused the town and the police department of negligence negligent in the hiring, training and supervision of officers.

 

The complaint highlighted dozens of text messages, recordings and other communications attributed to former state trooper Michael Proctor and former Canton police Sgt. Sean Goode. Among those were messages in which Proctor referred to Read as a “whack job” and wrote that he hoped she would kill herself.

 

The lawsuit also cited messages that it says included use of the n-word and, in one instance, a comment by Proctor that “Hitler was really on to something.”

 

Read’s lawyers have repeatedly argued that that those materials show both men should not have been involved in the investigation and that their conduct reflected broader failures in oversight by state and local law enforcement.

 

The Massachusetts State Police confirmed the $100,000 settlement in a statement to 12 News Monday evening, noting that Read is receiving the maximum payment set by the state’s Tort Claims Act.

 

“The department determined that this agreement would avoid prolonged litigation and the significant costs to taxpayers of continuing the case,” the statement explained, adding that the department will “continue to strengthen its investigative practices, enhance comprehensive training for investigators, and ensure that every investigation is thorough, impartial, and guided by the facts.”

 

Proctor was fired after being forced to read the messages he sent about Read while testifying in her first murder trial, which ended with a hung jury. Goode was placed on leave in November 2025 and resigned just days before Read filed her lawsuit.

 

Read walked out of court a free woman about a year ago after more than three years and two trials over the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, who was found on the suburban lawn of a fellow officer’s home after a night of heavy drinking during a snowstorm.