In a dramatic exchange on day 2 of the Karen Read murder trial, the judge turned to a key prosecution witness and asked, “Did you lie?”
The witness looked away from the judge, startled by the question, and replied, “I did. Not intentionally.”
The admission by Kerry Roberts, a close friend of John O’Keefe, came during intense cross-examination by Read’s attorney, Alan Jackson, on Wednesday. It also marked a significant difference from the first trial since the defense decided not to cross-examine Roberts last year.
Roberts admitted to telling a “false statement” to a grand jury in 2022 before Read’s indictment. Jackson asked if she realized she made the false statement under oath and penalty of perjury, to which she said, “I did.”
The exchange went viral and set social media and YouTube commentators ablaze with questions around whether Roberts admitted to committing perjury during her testimony.
A retired Massachusetts judge isn’t so convinced. He said the admission amounted to a prior inconsistent statement, but perjury?
“If they prosecuted this person for a prior inconsistent statement, there would have to be hundreds and hundreds of perjury cases,” said Jack Lu, a mediator and adjunct law professor at Boston College who served as a Massachusetts Superior Court judge for 16 years.
Perjury charges are “fairly unusual,” Lu said, and they are difficult to prove.
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