Maine Podcaster Billy Bush Backing Woman Sued In Alleged Cop Killing

By Ted Cohen

Presidential cousin Billy Bush is supporting controversial media darling Karen Read in her campaign to get cleared in a recent cop death.

“Hi my love,” Bush, former Access Hollywood host, gushed with excitement on his Maine-based podcast as he greeted the Massachusetts woman being sued by the family of dead Boston cop John O’Keefe.

Then Bush, brother of Jonathan Bush who's running for Maine governor, poured it on even thicker, saying, “you look really well-rested.”

Read replied in kind, “Oh, it's just my makeup,” adding “You've got a nice tan.”

Bush cooed back, “I've been out in Maine. I'm a Maine guy in the summer.”

“Oh, I've heard,” Read replied, “I heard you have a little spot on the coast.”

Then Bush told Read's parents, who joined her on the podcast, “She looks rested, she looks well, her eyes, her skin, I mean…”

Finally Bush got to what might be the collateral point - that he's behind Read's efforts to get her name cleared.

Read, acquitted in June of allegedly drunkenly killing her boyfriend cop, has been the subject of widespread national publicity in the well-known case that one TV analyst called “the murder case that captivated a nation.”

Read has become a folk hero for the rabid anti-cop "Karen" crowd who claims she was set up by the thin blue line to take the fall for a fatality that occurred during a fight outside a late-night house party involving cops jealous over her relationship with O'Keefe.

She was up on criminal charges that she backed into O'Keefe with her car outside of a Canton, Massachusetts house on a wintry night in January 2022, killing him.

But Massachusetts prosecutors were unable to persuade a jury that her car had actually struck O'Keefe.

He was found dead in the snow in Canton outside a different Boston cop’s house where a party was being held.

While Read was acquitted of murder, the jury found her guilty of drunk driving. She was sentenced to a year’s probation and a driver-alcohol education program, the standard sentence for first-time offenders.

A jury in her first criminal trial couldn't agree on a verdict so a mistrial was declared, prompting a second trial that resulted in the acquittal.

Read is now on trial in a civil case in a lawsuit brought against her by O’Keefe’s family alleging that she was in fact responsible for killing him.

O’Keefe’s family filed the wrongful-death suit alleging Read “intended the reckless conduct that resulted” in his death.

But the divorced Bush made it clear on his North Haven-based podcast that he's 100 percent a Read fan, believing she's getting railroaded a second time.

Bush, a Colby College graduate, is a cousin of former President George W. Bush, whose family also has a presence in Maine, along the Kennebunkport coast.