I requested Karen Learn yesterday if she had something she wished to say on to District Legal professional Michael Morrissey and the Mass State Police.
She considered it. She didn’t say something for 4, 5, six seconds – an eternity of silence in radio.
“You lost,” she lastly stated, then stopped once more for an additional three or 4 seconds. “You lost. You lost big time.”
And that about sums it up. After three and a half years of tried body ups, being arrested twice, being handcuffed to a radiator as soon as, dropping a fantastic job at Constancy, having to promote her house, being acquitted not as soon as, however twice, of the identical homicide, and never having the ability to drive since January 2022, lastly she might handle the demented law-enforcement lynch mob in Norfolk County that attempted to railroad her.
“You lost big time.”
It’s been greater than two months now for the reason that (second) not-guilty verdict, and now, the hunters are about to change into the hunted.
Karen Learn was in my studio along with her legal professional, Alan Jackson. He had flown again right here from California for technique periods about what occurs subsequent – this time on the civil aspect.
She’s once more the defendant, this time in a wrongful-death swimsuit introduced by the household of her useless boyfriend, John O’Keefe. However since she was acquitted of killing him (to repeat, twice), it appears unlikely that the O’Keefes have a lot of a case.
Alternatively, Karen Learn does have a case, a really huge case. They destroyed her life. The 4 North Finish guys framed by the FBI shared $102 million. Freddy Weichel, framed by one other corrupt Norfolk County district legal professional as a favor for Whitey Bulger, acquired $15 million.
How a lot is three years of Karen Learn’s life price? Really, her entire life. What she had earlier than is gone without end. She lives along with her mother and father now. Two months later, she’s nonetheless in a form of limbo, if not purgatory.
Karen Learn bought her life story to a Hollywood studio. On Wednesday, she learn {that a} Pittsfield native, Elizabeth Banks, had been solid within the function of… Karen Learn.
Who knew? Actually not Karen Learn.
“I read that probably about the exact same time you did,” she instructed me. “I had nothing to do with that. It’s not my movie.”
Banks is 52 years outdated. Karen Learn is 45. I requested her how she felt about having a girl that a lot older than herself starring in a model of her life story.
“When this all happened,” she stated, “I was only 42. So actually, the woman playing me is 10 years older than I was.”
She shrugged. What was she going to do? What extra can they do to her? You possibly can by no means be made entire after one thing just like the nightmare they put her by means of, for one thing she didn’t do. As Alan Jackson stated:
“How much value would you put for being in her shoes for 10 minutes, let alone four years?”
Choose Beverly Cannone hated Karen Learn, for therefore many causes. She refused to just accept the not-guilty verdicts a yr in the past – compelled her to lose one other yr of her life. Double jeopardy is what it was.
Now, Karen Learn’s civil case is perhaps filed in federal court docket, however extra doubtless in Plymouth, the place the doomed O’Keefe case has one other motions listening to Sept. 22.
The issue is, or is perhaps, for the reason that second failed necktie social gathering, Cannone has been transferred to Plymouth County. She seems to be following Karen Learn like Captain Ahab adopted the white whale.
Is there a risk, nevertheless slight, that Cannone might get a 3rd shot at destroying Karen Learn? It’s, in spite of everything, Massachusetts, the place within the halls of justice, the one justice is within the halls.
Jackson stated that regardless of the hypothesis on social media, it’s not occurring.
“Our case is in Plymouth,” he stated, “and Judge Cannone is assigned to Brockton. She’s not going to get the case.”
I reside in Norfolk County. Not too long ago, I used to be taking the trash out, and within the rubbish, I noticed that considered one of my neighbors had discarded an inexpensive nylon bag that bore the identify of District Legal professional Michael Morrissey.
Yesterday, it occurred to me that it would make a pleasant gag present. And I had a couple of different props to throw in it, together with some shards of damaged crimson taillight that I’d had a good friend of mine with a physique store present me with.
I pulled out a baggie of the shards and handed it to Karen Learn.
“I bought these at State Police GHQ this morning,” I stated. “At the gift shop. Do you know they have three shifts a day breaking these taillights off, to drop at any crime scene as needed?”
I additionally occurred to have some rubber duckies that I’d ordered from Amazon. I handed one every to Alan Jackson and Karen Learn.
She checked out it earlier than placing it down.
“Isn’t it an indictable offense,” she stated, “to have one of these in Norfolk County?”
Not anymore, Karen.
They misplaced. They misplaced. They misplaced huge time.
(Pre-order Howie’s new e book on the Karen Learn trial and different native scandals, “Mass Corruption Vol. 1: The Cops,” proper now at howiecarrshow.com and save $5.)
