Commonwealth v. Read — Trial ArchiveShanon Burgess
Testimony Impact
Shanon Burgess, founder of Aperture LLC, was engaged by the Commonwealth as a digital forensics expert to conduct a supplemental examination of the Lexus LX 570's infotainment system. His analysis focused on an SD card overlooked in the initial extraction, from which he recovered vehicle power-on and power-off timestamps and calculated a 21-to-29-second clock variance between the Lexus's internal clock and O'Keefe's iPhone. Burgess also responded to what he characterized as a potentially misleading clock synchronization analysis by the defense's expert, offering his own methodology as a corrective. His testimony spanned two trial days and drew extensive cross-examination that probed his credentials, methodology, and the circumstances surrounding a mid-trial supplemental report.
Challenges & Responses
What attorneys challenged during examination and how the witness responded.
Burgess faced sustained credibility challenges across two days of cross-examination. Alessi established that multiple public-facing documents misrepresented his educational background, that his original acquisition protocol rested on a bit-byte conversion error he ultimately conceded, that his January 2025 report characterized the case as a 'homicide' before testing was complete, that his May 8 supplemental report was described as self-initiated despite being framed as responsive to a direction in the report's own header, and that five slides in his presentation contained incorrect dates. On redirect and re-redirect, the prosecution addressed the credential issues by pointing to court-filed CVs using 'currently pursuing' language and clarifying the provenance of the Texas filing.
Notable Quotes From The Record
“So initial impressions were that data was missed from the initial download.”
Records Burgess's initial impression, which he later testified resulted from a capital-B/lowercase-b notation error and corrected through further review; it does not establish that Gaffney failed to recover available data from the three chips.
“So at that point I concluded that the data that we were missing was most likely stored on this SD card.”
Identifies the overlooked SD card on the infotainment module as the source of critical missing timestamp data.
“It was accurate to the second compared to our reference clock.”
Establishes the reliability of the infotainment timestamp data through exemplar testing.
“There was a claim of attempting to synchronize those two clocks that I believed was potentially misleading.”
Burgess said he viewed a clock-synchronization claim in a PowerPoint presentation as potentially misleading; he later identified that presentation as Mr. Dogra's, rather than a Whiffin report.
“The clock variance is between 21 and 29 seconds.”
Quantifies Burgess's stated variance between the Lexus internal clock and O'Keefe's iPhone. Applied to the second TechStream event, the resulting range concerns the end of its 10-second capture window, not necessarily the entire backing event.
“No, I do not.”
Burgess confirms that he does not hold the Bachelor of Science degree described in the cited credential documents.
“Correct. I did make an error.”
Burgess acknowledged conversion errors in the three-chip analysis after initially calling them misinterpretations.
“This would be the only one that I recall.”
Burgess said this was the only midtrial supplemental report he recalled in about 10 years; he explained that a March presentation prompted additional analysis.
“That adjustment is the only adjustment that can be applied due to the data.”
Burgess concedes the three-point turn method is the only way to place the TechStream event after the phone lock, though he frames it as a data limitation rather than bias.
“Not by itself.”
Burgess concedes that the black box data alone does not indicate a collision occurred.
“No one. My job is to assist the jury. Assisting the jury means presenting all the information.”
Burgess asserts independence from prosecution influence, countering defense suggestions of bias.
“So those timestamps are not coming from the vehicle. They're coming from Mrs. Read's iPhone — or the defendant's iPhone.”
Burgess distinguished early call rows recorded while the Lexus was off, which he said reflected iPhone-to-iPhone timestamps, from later powered-on infotainment-to-iPhone comparisons. He said the later times were accurate, agreed with a 5:00 a.m. calculation, but considered it temporally distant from the 12:30 period at issue.
“GPS point 154 is a GPS point that occurs just before the three-point turn starts.”
Directly contradicts Dogra's use of GPS 154 as representing the end of the three-point turn, which was the foundation of one of Dogra's variance calculations.
“That is 21 to 29 seconds.”
Burgess's final clock variance opinion, placing the adjusted Techstream backing event at 12:32:04-12:32:12 on O'Keefe's phone clock — overlapping with the 12:32:09 last user interaction.
“So again, the Techstream event ends somewhere between 12:32:04 and 12:32:12. But that does not represent that the backing maneuver has ended — just the recorded data has ended.”
Places the 12:32:09 last user interaction within the adjusted 12:32:04-to-12:32:12 Techstream recorded-data-end range. Burgess said the end of that recording window did not determine when the backing maneuver ended.
“Sure. So that is an error. Clearly, BGS stands for bachelor of general studies, and that should have "with minor in mathematics and business administration."”
Burgess described the listed title as an error, explaining that BGS stands for Bachelor of General Studies and that the line should identify minors in mathematics and business administration.
“Correct. Yes, it was.”
Burgess agreed that an incorrect statement about his educational background was filed in federal court after answering that he was not aware of such a filing; on re-redirect, he said he had neither submitted nor seen the document before filing.
“No, I did not.”
Burgess denies submitting the Texas federal court document himself or seeing it before filing
“That I would complete my degree in 2024.”
Explains the 2024 date on a 2023 filing as an expected graduation year, not a false claim of completion
“As most people can probably relate, work, family, and life many times get in the way.”
Humanizes the incomplete degree — reframes it from credential fraud to relatable life circumstances
“No, I have not.”
Direct denial that he ever represented to a court that he held a degree he did not earn
Key Moments
- Burgess testified that the initial forensic examination of the Lexus infotainment system by Maggie Gaffney had missed data stored on an SD card within the infotainment module — data he later recovered and used to establish a series of vehicle power-on timestamps spanning from 12:12 a.m. through a 5:34 p.m. event coinciding with tow truck arrival.
- On cross-examination, defense attorney Robert Alessi demonstrated that Burgess's October 2024 protocol — the foundational document challenging Gaffney's chip-off acquisition — contained a fundamental error: Burgess had confused megabits and megabytes, undermining the technical basis for his critique of the earlier forensic work. Burgess acknowledged the error after initially characterizing it as a misinterpretation.
- Alessi confronted Burgess with materials from his company's LinkedIn profile, website biography, and a linked CV, all of which listed a Bachelor of Science degree that Burgess confirmed under oath he does not hold. Burgess's LinkedIn hyperlink to the Aperture website was disabled within 72 hours of the defense viewing it.
- Alessi introduced a CV filed in a Texas federal court case bearing Burgess's name that listed a nonexistent 'Bachelor of General Science' degree without the 'currently pursuing' qualifier that appeared in CVs filed with the Massachusetts court — a distinction that formed the centerpiece of the recross examination on Day 19.
- On redirect, prosecutors established that Burgess did not personally file the Texas CV and that it listed a 2024 expected graduation date when filed in 2023, offering context for the credential discrepancy Alessi had highlighted.