Crime
A Stoughton man is facing criminal charges after authorities say he scattered rubber ducks around Canton to show support for Karen Read.
A duck left by Karen Read supporters outside Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office in Canton. The duck is said to symbolize defense attorney Alan Jackson’s statement during a hearing: “If he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he’s a duck.” » Kayla Bartkowski for the Boston Globe, file
A barrage of rubber ducks marked with messages protesting the Karen Read case prompted authorities to pursue accusations of witness intimidation in a bizarre episode that some Read supporters have dubbed “Duckgate.”
For months, the toy ducks have been popping up around Canton, where prosecutors say Read drunkenly and intentionally drove his SUV into her boyfriend — Boston police officer John O’Keefe — and killed him. left to die on January 29, 2022. Read’s lawyers allege she was entrapped in a massive law enforcement conspiracy, and they sought to implicate the Alberts, a local family that owned the Fairview Road home where O’Keefe was found unconscious in the snow.
Read’s first trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial on July 1. A new trial is expected to begin in January.
The case attracted national attention, with “Free Karen Read” supporters gathering outside the courthouse during her trial and promoting the cover-up defense theory. Some of the scrutiny has focused on owner Brian Albert’s nephew, Colin, who was present at 34 Fairview Road the night O’Keefe was killed, but who reportedly left the house before Read arrived and O’Keefe. Colin Albert also testified that there was no animosity between him and O’Keefe, his former neighbor.
Yet in the months before and after Read’s trial, Canton police documented several incidents in which rubber ducks and counterfeit $100 bills emblazoned with the slogan “COLIN DID IT!” » appeared in the city. A Stoughton man now faces charges of intimidation, harassment and littering after officials say he was behind the months-long campaign.
Authorities say Richard Schiffer Jr. used rubber ducks and fake invoices to frequently target a local pizzeria owned by Colin Albert’s father, Canton Select board member Chris Albert. Other alleged targets include a neighborhood where O’Keefe’s family resides and a home owned by embattled Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, the lead investigator in Read’s case.
According to a statement of facts filed in Stoughton District Court, the first documented incident occurred in early March, more than a month before Read’s trial began. Police allegedly traced the ducks and counterfeit $100 bills to Schiffer through witness tips, traffic cameras and surveillance footage, as well as empty packages recovered from Schiffer’s trash. Agents visited Schiffer in May to try to retrieve data from his truck, allegedly finding yellow ducks and “COLIN DID IT!” » stickers inside the vehicle.
Schiffer did not respond to requests for an interview.
Why rubber ducks?
The statement of facts connects the rubber ducks to a phrase that Alan Jackson, one of Read’s defense attorneys, used at a pretrial hearing last year: “If he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he’s a duck. »
Authorities say Schiffer “took the phrase used by Attorney Jackson while the Commonwealth vs. Read case was being tried, and used it to interfere in the case and began committing multiple crimes …using yellow rubber ducks and counterfeit $100 bills. »
The court document also refers to a video from the YouTube channel The Young Jurks, which livestreamed a September 14 protest in front of the canton police. In the video, a man who identifies himself as Schiffer says he started the duck and cash campaign in February.
“It’s just a joke,” says Schiffer.
“I didn’t have anyone involved in this, I did it on my own, smoking a joint at night thinking, ‘What more can I do to help?'” he continues. “So that was it, and here are my panels that I came up with and I started with the ducks and it’s been hilarious ever since and I can’t believe how they grew.”
Schiffer also speculated that authorities might try to link him to “Turtleboy” blogger Aidan Kearney, who is facing his own criminal charges for allegedly targeting witnesses in the Read case. In the statement of facts filed in Schiffer’s case, a township police officer clarified that Kearney — who gained national notoriety as the face of the “Free Karen Read” movement — “never made the subject of this investigation.
Kearney ridiculed the rubber duck accusations through his blog and live stream. He also reported that an unidentified woman was scheduled to be heard by a court clerk later this month on charges of witness intimidation and littering, stemming from a similar incident involving rubber ducks labeled “FKR.”
“Unfortunately, this is the type of authoritarian state that Norfolk County, Massachusetts has become, as gunmen are now trying to jail civilians for dropping rubber ducks in public places ” Kearney wrote on his blog.
Schiffer’s arraignment is scheduled for October 23.
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Abby Patkin
