Defense attorneys for the Phan brothers, who are charged with the 2020 shooting murder of 22-year-old Tyrone Phet, argued that revelations involving case investigator Sgt. Scott Quigley’s alleged misconduct presents a “sea change” in the case that should release the brothers from jail under personal recognizance.
“We want to be here before you today impaneling a jury and getting ready for trial and we can’t because of the Commonwealth,” Lorenzo Perez, attorney for Billoeum Phan said at a bail hearing Friday.
He said that allegations that Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Quigley was driving drunk when he crashed his cruiser head-on into a wheelchair van in Dec. 2023, causing injuries to an occupant that later killed him, represents a “sea change” in the case that should significantly alter considerations for his client.
Attorneys for the other defendants, Billy and Channa Phan, made similar arguments. Each described Quigley, who investigated the Phet murder as part of the investigative unit assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, as being a member of the prosecutorial team against their clients.
Mark Wester, who represents Billy Phan, said that while it’s “unusual to request bail in a first-degree murder case,” the complexities of this case warrant special attention.
Wester said that the “potential cover-up here” regarding Quigley’s misconduct has contributed to delayed justice for all. He noted that his client has been held without bail for five-and-a-half years, during which he has not been able to work or provide for his family.
William Dolan, who represents Channa Phan, was even blunter in his assessment, saying that prosecutors “went through the entire trial hiding exculpatory evidence” in that they knew of the allegations against Quigley yet hid them.
“If the Quigley matter had not come up, their trial would have been over by now,” Wester said, noting that when the revelations first surfaced jury selection for the second trial was already underway, with 12 jurors empaneled and ready to go. Since that time, the trial date has been continued multiple times as attorneys hash through how it changes things.
Judge Christopher K. Barry-Smith did not immediately rule on bail following those arguments.
The first 40 minutes of the hearing in Middlesex Superior Court in Lowell was taken over with complex, inside-baseball arguments regarding evidence discovery for the Quigley matter — a concern that prosecutor Thomas Brant says has made people “lose sight of” the primary matter at hand: Phet’s murder.
Brant detailed “the atrocious and violent record of each of the defendants,” who he says each “self-admit to being members of the Outlaws, which is a gang in Lowell.” Those include records of violent assaults while being in county lockups, requiring transfers.
He says while the defense may argue that the Quigley matter is “a change in circumstance,” that alone shouldn’t outweigh a history of violence in a first-degree murder case and allow for a release “after they’ve been detained based on their atrocious and violent records.”
He added that the brothers’ connection to Lowell is not as mitigating a factor as it may be for other defendants because that connection is largely a criminal one: “This has been a family-run business of drugs and violence.”
“This is a case where these individuals need to be held without bail until trial,” Brant said.
But defense attorneys argue that the Quigley matter is not the only thing that suggests the brothers should be released, which each argues should be under strict, 24-hour house arrest with exceptions for work, medical, or religious purposes. Instead, the case’s own history should be a contributing factor to Judge Barry-Smith’s decision.
The defense attorneys said that the brothers’ first trial for Phet’s murder ended in a hung jury, suggesting that the case was not as clear-cut as prosecutors made it out to be
Wester, arguing specifically for Billy Phan, said his client was also cleared of intimidating the prosecution’s star witness in the case, Abdulai Maranda. He said that his client had already been in the House of Correction for more than five years and was drained of all resources. Further, he has several children, has earned his GED, has no passport, and has lived in Lowell his entire life.
“He is not going to flee,” Wester said. “Where is he going to go, your honor?”
This is a developing story.
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