Karen Read’s formidable legal team, managing a multimillion-dollar defense, successfully helped her overturn murder accusations not once but twice. Their efforts were supported by questionable police work and unreliable witness testimonies.

Read, 45, from Mansfield, Massachusetts, was acquitted Wednesday of the 2022 killing of her then-boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. She was sentenced to one year probation after serving time on a lesser charge related to drunk driving. She maintained her innocence from the start and invested heavily in her legal defense, including hiring prominent attorneys from Los Angeles, and an alternate juror from her first trial.

Throughout both trials, her team argued she was a pawn in a significant law enforcement cover-up. Read had owed her lawyers $5 million before the second trial, and she sold her home to fund her defense, living off her retirement savings after losing jobs at Fidelity and Bentley University.

Supporters rallied around her, raising over $1 million from nearly 13,000 donors through a campaign organized by her legal team. The campaign seemingly crashed after the verdict was announced. Her defense was led by prominent attorney Alan Jackson, who previously defended high-profile figures like Harvey Weinstein.

The defense highlighted evidence revealing police misconduct, especially involving Massachusetts Trooper Michael Proctor, who had pretrial biases and made explicit, unprofessional comments about Read, suggesting he had already formed an opinion of her guilt before starting his investigation.

Proctor’s behavior, including disrespectful texts and false accusations, was extensively spotlighted, contributing to questions about the integrity of the prosecution’s case. Meanwhile, other suspects, including the victim’s friend and a police officer at the scene, were considered potential alternate culprits, based on suspicious actions and inconsistencies in witness accounts.

Ultimately, the jury’s doubt, along with revelations of investigative misconduct, led to her acquittal, marking a significant legal victory for Read and her team.