Lawyers for the blogger Aidan Kearney, who goes by “Turtleboy” online, have filed a motion to dismiss the witness intimidation indictments against him, claiming a prosecutor and police investigator essentially doctored evidence to ensure Kearney would face charges.
The motion and accompanying affidavit, filed by attorney Mark Bederow and totaling more than 120 pages, were filed in Norfolk Superior Court last week. Kearney faces three pending witness intimidation cases there, in connection with incidents in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Kearney, one of the loudest champions of Karen Read’s innocence leading up to and during her two criminal trials, is accused of harassing witnesses in the Read case. He and his lawyers have claimed his conduct is protected by the First Amendment.
Bederow’s motion, the second motion to dismiss filed by Kearney’s team this year, accuses the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office of conspiring with the Massachusetts State Police, witnesses in the Read case and a former employee of Kearney’s to concoct a criminal case against him to stop his reporting. Much of Kearney’s reporting focused on what he believed was evidence that those witnesses were complicit in the death of Read’s boyfriend, John O’Keefe, who was a Boston Police officer.
The filing accuses Ken Mello, the first special prosecutor hired to handle Kearney’s cases, of intentionally misleading the grand jury convened to hear evidence in the 2023 case. Mello “intentionally and repeatedly...
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