SPRINGFIELD — Complexity. COVID-19. Key witnesses in the wind.
These are among factors that continue to influence the dragging pace of the “Nathan Bill’s” case focused on a clash between a group of civilian patrons and off-duty police outside the popular East Forest Park pub in 2015.
An argument erupted in the bar over one of the civilians allegedly whistling at one of the female police officers, and the groups later came to blows in a parking lot a short distance away after closing time, according to witnesses. Certain members of the police department compounded the problem by attempting a cover-up, prosecutors with state Attorney General Maura Healey’s office have argued.
The investigation became an albatross around the Springfield Police Department’s neck amid other excessive force and civil rights investigations by state and federal authorities. Police officials have argued the case was politically motivated and unfairly skewed in early media accounts.
After a number of dismissals, nine of the original 14 police defendants remain, plus bar owners Joseph Sullivan and John Sullivan (no relation).
The alleged civilian victims are H. Paul Cumby, Jackie Ligon, Jozelle Ligon and Michael Cintron, who said a bunch of “white boys” jumped them in the Murphy’s Pop Shop parking lot on Island Pond Road. Police countered that the civilians were the aggressors.
The men collectively won an $885,000 civil settlement after suing the city. But only Cumby has continued to make himself available to investigators, according to court records. The Ligons and Cintron have been unresponsive for several months, an assistant attorney general told Judge Mark D. Mason during a hearing last month.
“This is alarming we’re hearing about this potentially months later,” said Springfield attorney Jeremy B. Powers, who represents officer Jose Diaz.
Diaz is one of the lead defendants in the case, accused of pointing a gun at the civilians. Diaz has denied this. Powers said his client was almost immediately knocked out in the melee and prosecutors have overreached with his client and others.
“This isn’t justice. It’s politics. The amount of resources that have been poured into this has been staggering. Taxpayer money would be better served taking illegal guns and drugs off the street as opposed to furthering the attorney general’s political ambitions,” Powers said.
A spokeswoman for Healey declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
Seven separate trials had been set to begin in March of 2020, but the pandemic got in the way as courts shuttered and conducted most business remotely. As the courts reopen, Mason has been working to get the case back on track.
Most recently, the judge ordered Diaz to stand trial on Aug. 2, with the “assault defendants” and “cover-up” defendants to follow. But after the disclosure that prosecutors hadn’t been in contact with the civilians in months, Mason was forced to revise that in a recent order.
Powers said he now expects his client will go to trial in late August or early fall.
Mason also noted that the Nathan Bill’s case will take a back seat to other cases with defendants who have waited behind bars for their days in court. None of the Nathan Bill’s defendants have been held without bail.
Attorney Joe Smith III, who represent the Ligons and Cintron, said he is “fairly confident” at least one of the three will show up for a pretrial conference set for July 14 in Hampden Superior Court.
Aside from Diaz and the Sullivans, the defendants who remain are officers Daniel Billingsley, Derrick Gentry-Mitchell, Shavonne Lewis, Darren Nguyen, John Wadjula, Anthony Cicero, Christian Cicero and Jameson Williams.
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