GREENFIELD A retired Springfield police lieutenant invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to testify Friday in a hearing about evidence in the long-running Nathan Bills cop brawl case.

Retired Springfield Police Lt. Thomas Kennedy appeared in Franklin Superior Court under a subpoena from an attorney for one of 15 defendants in the case.

Kennedy was one of a dozen detectives conducting a criminal investigation into the fight in the summer of 2015. Defense lawyer Shawn Allyn, representing defendant Officer Daniel Billingsley, was expected to quiz Kennedy about photo arrays the police compiled for the alleged civilian victims, who said they were jumped outside by off-duty police officers after a verbal altercation inside the popular East Forest Park bar. Kennedy was also expected to answer a series of questions about video evidence from inside the bar that may or may not have been destroyed.

Instead, Kennedy refused to answer any questions at all.

My client is exercising his constitutional right to decline to testify, said his lawyer, William Bennett, a former longtime Hampden district attorney. Bennett declined to comment following Kennedys brief court appearance.

Kennedy retired from the police department in 2016 and now works as an investigator in the Hampden district attorneys office.

The majority of the defendants in the case are current or former Springfield police officers, plus two of the bars owners. Some are charged in connection with the fight itself while others are implicated in an alleged cover-up. The case was investigated jointly by the state attorney generals office and the FBI.

At issue in a series of pretrial hearings in recent weeks before Judge Mark D. Mason is whether the cover-up defendants were properly advised by the government that they were at risk of being indicted, as opposed to merely being called as witnesses.

While Assistant Attorney General Stephen Carley has argued all were informed of their respective exposures in the case, many defense attorneys have disputed this. The debate has yielded a cascade of motions by defendants seeking to get their charges tossed, which have been argued amid a tangle of other motions to dismiss, suppress evidence and postpone trial dates.

Also testifying Friday was Boston attorney Stanley Wheatley, who represented perjury defendant Officer Joseph DAmour before his grand jury appearance in 2017. DAmour was a brand new patrolman still in training when he responded to the Nathan Bills disturbance. Subsequently, DAmour and others participated in interviews with the FBI, assistant attorneys general and state police before the grand jury session, Wheatley said.

Wheatley testified that DAmour was prepared to cooperate with law enforcement. He said the interview felt collaborative and that he was stunned when DAmour was charged criminally.

I remember saying to ... Carley that I cant believe you indicted this guy; he tried to cooperate. Thats the last time I do that. It made me look bad, Wheatley said under direct examination by DAmours defense lawyer, Michael Packard.

During cross-examination, Assistant Attorney General Andrea Mauro suggested Wheatley lacked experience representing clients in criminal cases and it was he who dropped the ball by not protecting DAmours interests.

Thats one of the reasons people retain attorneys, right? she asked.

Following Wheatleys testimony, Paul Federico, who runs trivia nights at Nathan Bills, said some of the alleged victims in the case drunkenly hassled him and his girlfriend before they began arguing with off-duty police.

They were being aggressive and inappropriate. ... I think they may have touched her, but Im not sure, Federico said, adding that he reported the exchanges to a bar manager, who asked the civilians to leave.

Throughout the case, it has been hotly contested who started the fight, as men on both sides suffered injuries. The city paid out $885,000 in a civil settlement to the civilians in 2018.

Capping a full day of pretrial hearings Friday, Mason denied a motion by the attorney generals office to delay the Nathan Bills trials by four months. They will begin March 30 in Hampden Superior Court.

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Retired Springfield police lieutenant takes the 5th in hearing on Nathan Bills brawl - MassLive.com