Massachusetts State Police is asked for info on every case investigated by former Trooper Michael Proctor

Colleen Cronin, Boston Herald on Jun 10, 2026

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BOSTON — The Committee for Public Counsel Services is asking Mass State Police to turn over information for all cases, open or closed, that former State Trooper Michael Proctor investigated, citing shocking texts revealed in a lawsuit filed by Karen Read.

The request from CPCS, which oversees the process of representing the state’s indigent defendants, comes after a barrage of crude and offensive messages from Proctor were quoted in the lawsuit Read filed against the MSP and the Canton Police Department last week.

Proctor investigated Read for the murder of her late boyfriend Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Read was tried twice for murder, and acquitted during the second trial last year. During both proceedings, text messages written by Proctor that sexualized Read and said she was guilty were read out loud.

Those messages along with the new texts included in Read’s lawsuit have raised questions about the quality and fairness of investigations Proctor conducted.

CPCS Chief Counsel Anthony Benedetti characterized the newly published messages sent between Proctor and his long-time friend former Canton Police Officer Sean Goode as “virulently racist, sexist, antisemitic, homophobic and hateful.”

In one message, Proctor allegedly tells Goode not to worry about rushing to a car accident in town after realizing a Black person was involved and using a racial slur to describe that person.

Proctors used several other racial slurs and crude language for women, and at one point praising the work of Hitler, according to the suit filed in Bristol County Superior Court.

The messages included in Read’s latest suit are only a selection of those pulled from Proctor’s device.

Benedetti wrote that he’s concerned about the language, as well as messages Proctor sent regarding “planting evidence on suspects.”

Read’s lawsuit only mentions that allegations briefly, stating, “More than once, Proctor discussed ‘planting coke’ on people,” but doesn’t expand on what else those messages included.

“There is no question that such messages demonstrate bias and misconduct by the officers who sent them and, therefore, constitute mandatory discovery,” Benedetti wrote.

According to Massachusetts General Laws, any information which may be favorable to a defendant has to be turned over to them.

“To ensure that all impacted defendants receive the evidence to which they are constitutionally entitled,” Benedetti continued, “I ask that the Massachusetts State Police provide to the Committee for Public Counsel Services a list of all open and closed cases in which Michael Proctor was an investigator.”

That information would include the defendant’s name, the docket number of the case, the internal MSP case number, and any numbers for police reports produced during the case, Benedetti wrote.

“We have received (the committee’s) correspondence and will review the request to determine the appropriate next steps,” MSP spokesperson Sarah Burgess wrote in an email to the Herald.

The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, where Proctor was embedded while he was an investigator, noted they began reaching out to defendants “since at least the fall of 2025,” providing them with the contents of Proctor’s personal cell phone.

“Additionally, the NDAO has already been providing similar notices on post-conviction cases,” the office said in a statement.

Proctor was eventually fired by the State Police last year, after the text messages were made public and before Read’s second trial.

Both Benedetti in his letter and Read, via her suit, took issue with the timing of his discipline, noting that State Police knew about the messages as early as 2024.

Proctor initially fought his firing but dropped his appeal in October.

Independently of the suit against MSP and Canton PD, Read is suing Proctor in federal court. But in both cases, Read alleges that Proctor and other members of MSP and Canton Police framed her and failed to follow other leads.

A hearing for her case against the two departments has not yet been scheduled.

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