Aidan Kearney is a blogger from central Massachusetts who publishes as Turtleboy. In the past three years he has become the most consequential blogger in the state’s legal history: the loudest voice for Karen Read’s innocence, the man who named the Lindsay Clancy holdout juror, a defendant in a defamation suit brought by Read case witnesses, and the subject of three separate witness intimidation indictments in Norfolk County, one of which is scheduled for trial in December.
People searching for Turtleboy usually want one of four things: who he is, where to find him online, what he is charged with, and when his trial is. This piece answers all four from the court record and mainstream reporting. Kearney is presumed innocent of every pending charge, and he has consistently said that everything he is accused of is journalism protected by the First Amendment.
Who Turtleboy is
Aidan Timothy Kearney lives in Jefferson, a village of Holden, outside Worcester. He started Turtleboy Sports in 2013 as a Worcester blog, named after a well-known statue in the city. The site grew into a regional outlet, now called TB Daily News, known for aggressive coverage of local officials, police, schools, and people who found themselves on the wrong side of a viral story. In 2018 he broke stories about a Massachusetts State Police K-9 trooper’s undisclosed drug history that led to her discharge. He has been a regular guest on Howie Carr’s radio show.
His active X account is @DoctorTurtleboy. His YouTube channel runs live shows several nights a week, and his written work appears at TB Daily News. Searches for “Turtleboy Twitter” and “Turtleboy X” outnumber searches for his name, which tells you where his audience actually meets him.
The Karen Read coverage
In April 2023 Kearney began covering the prosecution of Karen Read, the Mansfield woman charged with killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, by striking him with her SUV outside a Canton home on January 29, 2022. Read’s defense argued she was framed and that O’Keefe was beaten inside the home, owned by fellow officer Brian Albert. Kearney adopted that theory wholesale, published the names, addresses and histories of the people inside the house that night, and drew an audience of hundreds of thousands to a case that until then was a local story.
Read’s first trial ended in a hung jury on July 1, 2024. At her second trial she was acquitted on June 18, 2025 of murder and manslaughter and convicted of operating under the influence. Kearney greeted supporters outside the Dedham courthouse that day. Prosecutors alleged during the criminal case that he and Read had communicated extensively, and in September 2025 the special prosecutor in Kearney’s case sought a warrant for Read’s phones to look for evidence that the two conspired to intimidate witnesses.
The 2023 indictment: sixteen counts
Kearney was arrested in October 2023 on nine counts. In December 2023 a Norfolk County grand jury returned a sixteen-count indictment: eight counts of witness intimidation, three counts of conspiracy to intimidate witnesses, and five counts of picketing a witness. The named victims were witnesses in the Read case, including members of the Albert and McCabe families, and the allegations centered on a “rolling rally” protest outside witnesses’ homes, the posting of personal information, and recorded confrontations.
The statute is G.L. c. 268, § 13B. It makes it a crime to willfully, directly or indirectly, threaten, attempt or cause injury to, or mislead, intimidate or harass a witness or potential witness, with intent to impede or interfere with a criminal proceeding, or with reckless disregard for that effect.
Kearney moved to dismiss all sixteen counts on First Amendment grounds. On May 19, 2025, Judge Michael Doolin issued a 37-page ruling. He rejected the constitutional argument entirely: “After careful consideration, the Court concludes that the First Amendment does not insulate Kearney from the indictments.” He found the statute narrowly tailored and found probable cause “that Kearney posted videos and organized gatherings with the intent to incite third parties to harass the various named witnesses.” He noted that in a video titled “Jury Influence,” Kearney “admits this is exactly what he is trying to do.”
But Doolin dismissed six of the sixteen counts for insufficient evidence, including the counts relating to former Trooper Michael Proctor and Trooper Yuri Bukhenik. Proctor was not home when the rolling rally reached his house. Statements about the two troopers were “distasteful” and “insulting” but not clearly intended to obstruct the case. Counts relating to license plate information Kearney allegedly obtained from a police dispatcher were also dismissed. Ten counts remain.
The 2024 case: dropped
In January 2024 Kearney was arrested again and charged with assault and battery on a household member and witness intimidation. Prosecutors said he shoved his ex-girlfriend, Lindsey Gaetani, who had been called before the grand jury in the Read investigation, into a couch during an argument over her phone. Special prosecutor Kenneth Mello asked that his bail be revoked and a judge agreed. Kearney spent about a month in jail before being released in February 2024 and pleading not guilty to further charges, which reporting at the time said included wiretapping. In June 2025 a jury acquitted him of a related charge of violating a restraining order Gaetani had obtained, according to Men’s Journal; we have not located a second outlet’s account of that verdict.
The case then collapsed on the prosecution side. Mello was disqualified by Judge Doolin for communicating with Gaetani around the time of the incident. Gaetani filed a counterclaim in a defamation suit Kearney had brought against her in Worcester Superior Court, accusing the second special prosecutor, retired judge Robert Cosgrove, of improperly releasing an unredacted report of a sexual assault she had alleged. Kearney has never been charged with sexual assault. Cosgrove withdrew from the Gaetani case in September 2025. With no prosecutor left, District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office filed a nolle prosequi on October 22, 2025, ending that case.
The 2025 indictment: the pizza shop
On March 4, 2025, the night before a hearing on his motion to dismiss, Kearney was recorded outside D & E Pizza & Subs in Canton, a shop owned by Chris Albert, a Canton select board member, Read trial witness, and brother of Brian Albert. State police transcribed him speaking into the shop’s camera for over a minute, calling Chris Albert and his son Colin murderers and asking “Why did you do that, Chris?” and “Tell me why Colin did it.” On May 13, 2025 a grand jury indicted him on two more counts of witness intimidation. The Alberts were already named victims in the 2023 case.
Where the cases stand now
The 2023 and 2025 indictments are pending in Norfolk Superior Court before Judge Christopher Belezos, who was specially assigned to all of Kearney’s cases. Belezos took the judicial seat Cosgrove vacated on retiring.
Kearney’s lawyers, Mark Bederow and Timothy Bradl, have two motions pending. The first, filed in September 2025 and running more than 120 pages, seeks dismissal of the 2023 indictment on the ground that Mello and Detective Lieutenant Brian Tully misled the grand jury, including by retitling clips of Kearney’s YouTube episodes, one of them as “Enjoying Watching Witnesses Squirm,” and by withholding discovery about a former Kearney employee, Katherine Peter. The second seeks to remove Cosgrove as prosecutor because he must now defend himself against Gaetani’s claims while she remains a potential witness.
At a hearing on January 30, 2026, Belezos was openly skeptical of the second motion, suggesting another lawyer simply be added to handle anything involving Gaetani. Cosgrove said he did not intend to call her. Belezos said the case “is an important First Amendment issue which should be decided by a jury of the defendant’s peers” and urged both sides to get it to trial. A hearing on the motion to dismiss was held on July 20, 2026. No ruling has been reported in the sources we were able to retrieve, and the trial remains scheduled for December 2026. Kearney has said publicly that he still faces the possibility of decades in prison if convicted on all counts.
The civil cases
Kearney is a defendant, with Karen Read, in a defamation suit brought by Read case witnesses. A judge denied the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion, and on September 18, 2026 refused to stay the case while they appeal, which we covered in our report on that ruling. He is the plaintiff in the Worcester Superior Court defamation suit against Gaetani. Whether he will be sued by Patrick Clancy, whose lawyer threatened action on September 8, is unknown; Kearney was not named in that statement.
The Clancy juror
On September 12, 2026, eight days after the Lindsay Clancy mistrial, Kearney published the name and photograph of the man he identified as the lone holdout juror. We explained how he did it and what the law says in our report at the time. Judge William Sullivan subsequently sealed the jurors’ names indefinitely. Posts on X have claimed Kearney is “under investigation” for jury harassment over the naming. No prosecutor, court or mainstream outlet has confirmed any such investigation, and we do not report it as fact. On September 19 Kearney posted that “the 90 years I’m still facing have nothing to do with” a separate matter, a reference to his pending Norfolk counts.
What a conviction would mean
Witness intimidation under § 13B carries up to ten years in state prison per count. Kearney’s public references to decades of exposure reflect the counts added together; consecutive sentences on every count would be unusual. Conviction on any felony would also make him a prohibited person under the state’s gun licensing law. None of that has happened. He has pleaded not guilty to everything, has never been convicted of any of these charges, and one of the three cases against him has already been dropped.
Who is Turtleboy?
Aidan Kearney, a blogger from Jefferson, Massachusetts, who founded Turtleboy Sports in Worcester in 2013 and now publishes as TB Daily News. He became nationally known for his coverage of the Karen Read case.
What is Turtleboy’s Twitter or X account?
@DoctorTurtleboy. His written work is at TB Daily News and his live shows are on YouTube.
What is Aidan Kearney charged with?
Ten remaining counts from a 2023 witness intimidation indictment (out of sixteen; six were dismissed in May 2025) and two counts from a 2025 indictment over the Canton pizza shop incident. A 2024 case involving his ex-girlfriend was dropped in October 2025.
When is the Turtleboy trial?
December 2026, in Norfolk Superior Court before Judge Christopher Belezos. A motion to dismiss argued July 20, 2026 is pending.
Did a judge rule his coverage was protected by the First Amendment?
No. Judge Doolin rejected the First Amendment argument in May 2025 while dismissing six counts for insufficient evidence.
Is Aidan Kearney under investigation for naming the Clancy juror?
That claim has circulated on X. No prosecutor, court or news organization has confirmed it.
Charging history from the Boston Herald (December 21, 2023, and October 22, 2025), WCVB (January 25, 2024, and May 13, 2025), MassLive (May 13, 2025; September and October 2025; January 2026, as syndicated by Yahoo News) and the Norfolk Superior Court ruling of May 19, 2025 as reported. Background from the Wikipedia article on Kearney and its cited sources, cross-checked against the reports above. G.L. c. 268, § 13B read at malegislature.gov. The June 2025 restraining-order acquittal rests on a single source and is labeled as such. Aidan Kearney is presumed innocent of all pending charges. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.