Lawyers on either side of the Karen Read murder trial have been banned from sharing prejudicial information outside of court.

Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone issued the gag order on Friday in a victory for special prosecutor Hank Brennan.

Read faces a second murder trial starting April 1, accused running over Boston police officer John O’Keefe with her SUV on January 29, 2022.

She was charged with murdering O’Keefe after a night out, but she instead claimed he was beaten by those inside the house his body was found on the front lawn of.

Her first murder trial ended with a hung jury on July 1 and the retrial is only weeks away, which will likely again be picketed by her army of supporters.

Brennan asked for the gag order to limit what Read’s lawyers said outside court after complaining they were disparaging witnesses and improperly undermining his case.

He also took issue with Read herself being allowed to disclose what happened during grand jury proceedings, which are secret.

Brennan said ‘the ongoing, deliberate, purposeful poisoning of the potential jury pool is not only wrong and unfair, it needs to be stopped’.

Judge Cannone knocked back a previous request because there was no trial date set, but accepted it this time as the trial start drew near.

‘Based, on these interviews and defense counsel’s consistent, publicly-reported interactions with reporters and bloggers throughout the first trial, the court agrees with the Commonwealth,’ she ruled.

‘An order limiting extrajudicial statements of counsel is both appropriate and necessary to ensure a fair and impartial trial and finds that no reasonable, less restrictive alternative to the order is available.’

However, Read will still be free to say whatever she wants, which she celebrated by saying ‘I like talking. I like to reveal the truth’ after the hearing.

Cannone last month dramatically ended proceedings with a shaky courtroom outburst, citing ‘evidence’ she said changes everything.

The evidence related to claims the defense may have secretly paid expert witnesses who the jury believed were working independently.

‘The implications of that information may have profound effects on this defense and defense counsel,’ she told the court.

Before Cannone called for the unplanned recess, Brennan revealed in court that Read’s defense team had communicated with accident reconstruction experts from ARCCA Inc. hired by the FBI about their testimony before Read’s first trial.

Brennan read what appeared to be emails between the defense and ARCCA and pointed out a $23,925 bill that he said the ARCCA sent to the defense.

‘The commonwealth, as I understand it, was not aware of any promised rewards or inducements or payments,’ Brennan said. ‘They relied on a reciprocal discovery order of this court for that information.’

Calling out the bombshell payment request, Cannone, who was visibly trembling as she spoke, said: ‘The commonwealth just provided the court with information that causes me grave concern.

‘The implications of that information may have profound effects on this defense and defense counsel.

‘So, for that reason, I’m going to suspend today so that when we meet again to address these issues, all affected will be appropriately prepared.’

Judge Cannone had previously declared a mistrial in July of last year after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict before ruling in August that Read could be retried on all three charges.

Within the emails, the ARCCA’s director of accident reconstruction Daniel Wolfe also praised defense attorney Alan Jackson’s questioning and allegedly wrote, ‘if you don’t want me to say this, that’s fine,’ Boston.com reported.

‘That’s not trial by ambush, that’s getting duped,’ Brennan said. ‘I don’t care if the ARCCA witnesses testify at trial. I don’t care about their opinions. But I care that it’s unfair, imbalanced, and hidden.’

Read also filed a habeas corpus claim in US District Court in Boston and asked for two of her charges to be dismissed. The judge is yet to rule on this.

Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the motion to dismiss both counts after Read’s lawyers argued jurors in her first trial unofficially agreed to acquit her of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, Boston.com reported.

The defense also argued that a retrial on all charges would violate Read’s double jeopardy protections.

O’Keefe, according to autopsy results, died from hypothermia and blunt force trauma.

Read’s attorneys have portrayed her as the victim, saying O’Keefe was actually killed inside Albert’s home and then dragged outside.

They argued that investigators focused on Read because she was a ‘convenient outsider’ who saved them from having to consider law enforcement officers as suspects.

Read’s defense said their theory that she was framed in a vast police conspiracy was supported by texts Trooper Michael Proctor – who led the investigation into O’Keefe’s death – wrote about Read, which he was forced to read aloud in court last summer.

In the messages, Proctor called Read a ‘whack job’ and a ‘c**t’ and referred to her as a ‘babe’ with ‘no a**,’ while also making light of her ‘Fall River accent’.

In other messages, he joked about rummaging through her phone for nude photos during the investigation.

Proctor claimed that ‘these juvenile, unprofessional comments had zero impact on the facts, the evidence and the integrity of the investigation’.

Read’s attorney Martin Weinberg argued that five jurors later said they were deadlocked only on the manslaughter count.

He added that they unanimously agreed in the jury room that she wasn’t guilty on the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene.

But they hadn’t told the judge.

Read told Boston 25 News that she’s ready for a second trial and isn’t worried about who’s on the prosecution team.

‘I don’t care who I face,’ she told the station. ‘I have the truth. I have the best attorneys. Do your worst.’

Read could end up in prison — a fate she said she ‘thinks about that every day,’ but she said, ‘It doesn’t frighten me the way it did three years ago.’

Weinberg had urged the court to allow an evidentiary hearing where jurors could be asked whether they had reached final not guilty verdicts on any of the charges.

Prosecutors maintained there’s no basis for dismissing the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene.

They argued that her lawyers should have sensed a mistrial was ‘inevitable or unavoidable’ and that they had every opportunity to be heard in the trial courtroom.

[H/T Daily Mail]