Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney sits in a jail cell on his 42nd birthday. It was the day after what could be his last Christmas with his wife and kids as he had his bond revoked for multiple felonies that may place him in state prison for decades.
Turtleboy is therefore a loser, right? End of discussion. He got himself in jail, he ruined his year, he forever scarred his kids after a terrible weekend where their father was hiding from police after allegedly abusing a girlfriend whom they’ll never meet.
But is it that easy? Did his year ending in jail ruin what otherwise could classify him as a winner?
Turtleboy started the year with a small encounter with fame and a bit of publicity. He was sued by for defamation by Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia, who Turtleboy assured his readers was involved in a DUI stop that was covered up.
While Turtleboy offered no evidence and never seemed to be able to prove his claims against Mejia, with the case in settlement talks the last we heard an update, the small amount of fame he received from having his name in the news in the Boston area.
To the casual observer, Turtleboy saw the press he was receiving, even in a negative fashion, as something that could propel him to fame and riches. He quickly embraced his “award winning journalist” moniker and outed a conservative news reporter for allegedly using Turtleboy as a source without crediting Turtleboy for the leg work involved in producing the information for the reporter.
He then went into a well-publicized feud with Boston area “celebrity chef” Mike Fucci. Turtleboy accused Fucci of faking cancer treatments and essentially embezzling donations made towards his treatment. The feud culminated in Turtleboy going to “interview Fucci” at his parents’ house in the role of a “journalist” while live streaming.
Fucci attempted to get a restraining order against Turtleboy and failed due to Massachusetts’s extreme requirements to obtain a protective order. Emboldened, Turtleboy then began to harass Kate Peter’s teenage daughter and Peter, too, failed to obtain a protective order against him.
Turtleboy then was challenged to a debate on Lauren DeLaguna’s YouTube channel by Host Dan of the Welsh News Network. Host Dan, who was in the hospital due to a heart attack, and Turtleboy were both surprised by the last-minute format change by DeLaguna.
DeLaguna decided to turn the debate into an episode of a reality tv court room drama with her acting as “Judge” working with a “jury” made up of friends and family. When Turtleboy performed badly at the start of the show, DeLaguna helped him work through his issues and the pair double teamed Host Dan through the rest of the show.
Somewhere in the mix, Turtleboy met an acquaintance of accused murderess Karen Read, and Turtleboy’s life would change forever.
Read was accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in 2020 by drunkenly backing into him with her car during a snowstorm and leaving him to die from his injuries.
By the start of the summer, Turtleboy was fully engrained as an unofficial spokesperson for Read. Documents and news from the case would allegedly be leaked to Turtleboy, who then put his own spin on things as he insulted and berated witnesses in the murder trial and used his established blog and YouTube channel to promote an alternative theory of the death of O’Keefe.
In Turtleboy’s world, the friends O’Keefe was attempting to visit the night of his death now murdered him as he entered the house. A grand conspiracy played out with every major police agency in the state becoming involved in the hours between the incident that killed O’Keefe and he discovery of his body the next morning.
The conspiracy theory and attacks on witnesses and police played well with Turtleboy’s audience. He capitalized on the interest in the case by selling “Free Karen Read” t-shirts and immediately became the face of the “Free Karen Read” movement.
Turtleboy spent the summer into early fall as the leader of the movement, drawing between 30 to 100 people at a time to rallies outside of witnesses’ homes and outside the courthouse for every court appearance by Read.
His followers began to follow witnesses in the case, with some taking photographs of witness Jen McCabe as she was vacationing. Turtleboy himself would directly contact witnesses himself, with one conversation with a witness fueling the unsuccessful attempt by the defense to have the Judge in the case recuse herself after Turtleboy mistakenly interpreted a sarcastic comment made by that witness as an existing relationship with the judge.
In attendance of his rallies and overall influence over actual followers in his area, no other member of the first amendment auditing community could rival Turtleboy. Even Long Island Audit, who could draw viewers to his YouTube channel in numbers that Turtleboy could only dream of, could not bring in the sheer volume of local supporters to his rallies as Turtleboy could.
Everything was going Turtleboy’s way… until the indictment.
Turtleboy was indicted in October on multiple felony charges of witness intimidation, conspiracy, and picketing. Most of his electronic devices were seized in the investigation. Initially, his die-hard fans supported him fully. He was able to raise $60,000 from those fans to fuel the first payment to his defense attorney.
Now under a protection order preventing him from contacting or harassing major witnesses in the case, Turtleboy’s influence began to wane. While still offering scoops from the defense team, his focus became more on his own defense rather than defending Karen Read.
In late December Turtleboy’s district level charges were vacated and replaced with charges in Massachusetts Superior court. While the protection orders preventing him from contacting witnesses was also vacated in the move to Superior court, Turtleboy did not get a chance to test his restored freedom as he was released with the instruction not to commit more crimes before his next hearing in the case.
Hours after Friday’s hearing, Turtleboy went to the house of one of his many girlfriends. This girlfriend had apparently previously testified to the grand jury involved in the case against him. A recording of the events, which Turtleboy would later release to his YouTube channel, showed the woman accusing Turtleboy of demanding that the woman support his version of events in the Karen Read case.
After his girlfriend announced that she had taken pills he had given her to terminate her pregnancy earlier in the night, she begged for him to stay. An altercation apparently then occurred between the two as the woman refused to give Turtleboy the notes he had taken from going through her phone. Turtleboy exited the house and the woman called police.
By Sunday afternoon a “Be on the Lookout” order was issued by police for Turtleboy. The new assault charges were a violation of his Bond in the Karen Read case and police were instructed to apprehend him if they could find him. Turtleboy would later release a portion of the audio recording of Friday’s incident with his girlfriend to his YouTube channel.
A warrant for Turtleboy’s arrest was issued on Tuesday followed by Turtleboy turning himself into police. A hearing held on late Tuesday saw his lawyer play the tape of the evidence to the Court as proof that the woman had set Turtleboy up, which apparently backfired as Turtleboy’s bond was revoked and he was sent to jail until his next court hearing.
The Turtleboy saga saw him rise to great fame in the Boston area in 2023. His influence was felt in a major murder trial. He made over $100,000 in donations from followers and he maintained multiple extra marital affairs without losing his wife.
While achieving his wildest fantasies in 2023 and having influence over his audience that influencers such as Jose “Chille” DeCastro can only dream of, Turtleboy ends the year in a jail cell. His future in doubt and facing the possibility of doing more time for his actions than alleged murderess Karen Read will face if convicted of the murder of John O’Keefe.
Is Turtleboy a winner or a loser of 2023? It’s time to share your thoughts. Please tell us in the comments below or on our Discord server (https://discord.gg/h7VvqKYyHA).
