dpProctor recently filed an emergency motion to delay his deposition in the wrongful death matter, citing “medical documentation.” He also requested an impoundment order to keep those records sealed, which the court granted.
About 30 minutes after the “sensitive and private medical” material was filed and emailed to the attorneys on June 8, similar information was posted on an X account, Gildea said.
“Orders of the court have been violated, either directly, or at the very least, in spirit,” he said. The judge did not elaborate further on the apparent leak itself or the information shared.
In previously granting Proctor’s impoundment request, Gildea cited a “legitimate expectation of privacy,” court records show.
After the apparent leak, the judge issued an order pausing all discovery in the case involving Proctor. He threatened to make that pause permanent if the attorneys can’t follow the rules.
Read was accused of killing her boyfriend, former Boston police officer John O’Keefe, by hitting him with her car in January 2022. She alleged a law enforcement cover-up and was acquitted in a second criminal trial last year after the first jury deadlocked.
She currently faces the wrongful death suit brought by O’Keefe’s family — one of several ongoing civil proceedings in the protracted legal saga, which has drawn a large following on social media and elsewhere.
Dozens of Read’s supporters showed up for Wednesday’s hearing in Plymouth, as did Read herself, accompanied by her parents.
Proctor, who served as lead investigator in Read’s criminal case, was fired from the Massachusetts State Police for misconduct after her first trial, when he was forced to share a series of crude and misogynistic comments he made. Since then, even more racist and bigoted messages have surfaced in court papers, raising bigger questions about other criminal investigations he touched.
He requested to delay his deposition in the wrongful death case just one day after Read filed another lawsuit against State Police and the Town of Canton, alleging they hired corrupt and biased police officers; the complaint cited a host of hateful messages recovered from Proctor’s personal phone. In the communications, both Proctor and former Canton police sergeant Sean Goode expressed bigoted views of women, Jewish people, the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized groups.
However, Proctor’s lawyers did not cite the new litigation in the rescheduling motion. The request was ultimately denied, but it resulted in the impoundment orders that led to Wednesday’s hearing.
Gildea said he called an in-person hearing to convey the seriousness of the matter at hand — in the “quiet solemnity of the courtroom.” He decried the impacts of social media on the judicial process, describing a modern environment in which “the courtroom has become content and the law has become a spectacle.”
It was a stunning rebuke of the more than 20 attorneys in attendance. They had all filed court papers denying a leak, but somehow the sealed information became public, Gildea noted. He didn’t give Proctor a pass, either.
“All people deserve fair and equal treatment in our system of justice, regardless of any personal characteristic, as abhorrent as some of them may be,” he said.
Proctor is not a defendant in the case, which O’Keefe’s family filed against Read and the two Canton bars where the couple had been drinking the night of his death.
Gildea called for assurance that the ongoing discovery process will “serve justice — and not any desire to weaponize the rules for pettiness and profit.” He directed the parties involved to propose an agreement to govern the process moving forward; violation would result in a contempt finding or other sanctions, he said.
Gildea concluded his remarks with a reference to the upcoming July 4 holiday and the 250th anniversary of America’s democratic system of governance: “May it continue to succeed, with all of us working to maintain the rule of law,” he said.
The judge left the bench as soon as he was done speaking. One of Read’s attorneys, Alan Jackson, then requested an opportunity to be heard. The clerk agreed to ask the judge, but the resulting answer was a “no.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected]. Lea Skene can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @lea_skene.
