LOWELL — The timing of when prosecutors learned that a key State Police investigator in the Phan brothers’ murder case was allegedly under the influence of alcohol during a fatal on-duty crash emerged as a central issue during a hearing Monday in Middlesex Superior Court.

The issue surfaced as defense attorney William Dolan renewed his motion to dismiss the charges against his client, Channa Phan, stating that newly disclosed records and inconsistent statements from the State Police and prosecutors suggest the commonwealth may have been in possession of exculpatory information about Sgt. Scott Quigley for nearly two years.

Channa Phan and his brothers, Billy and Billoeum Phan, are charged with first-degree murder for the shooting death of 22-year-old Tyrone Phet, of Lowell, in September 2020.

During Monday’s hearing, prosecutors submitted a letter that Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan sent last Wednesday to State Police Col. Geoffrey Noble, in which she asked the agency to “immediately initiate an independent investigation” into why her office was never notified about the details of Quigley’s crash.

Ryan wrote that Quigley, who has been suspended without pay, “was assigned to the State Police Detective Unit for Middlesex County at all relevant times.”

In the letter, Ryan said her office only recently learned — “in the midst of jury empanelment” — that on Dec. 12, 2023, while on duty driving a State Police cruiser, Quigley allegedly crossed the center line on Lexington Street in Woburn and struck a van carrying 37-year-old Angelo Schettino, who died a month later.

“The State Police did not notify this Office, despite the fact that Sgt. Quigley is a witness in multiple, pending Middlesex District Attorney’s Office homicide cases,” Ryan said.

Ryan also told Noble that her office was never informed when the State Police was named as a defendant in a wrongful‑death lawsuit filed in May 2025 by Schettino’s estate, nor that Quigley’s hospital records “allegedly show that his blood alcohol content was over the legal limit of .08% on the day of the crash.”

She wrote that had prosecutors been told of the toxicology results earlier, “we would have immediately referred this matter to another District Attorney’s office to conduct an independent investigation into whether criminal charges were appropriate.”

According to the letter, that referral was made on Jan. 28 — “the day after we finally learned of this information.” The incident had been referred to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office for a criminal investigation.

Ryan closed the letter by urging the State Police to appoint an outside investigator “to conduct a full and fair inquiry into why no notification was made to this Office,” adding that procedures “must immediately be put into place to prevent this sort of situation from happening again.”

Dolan submitted a response letter of his own to the court, asking that it be marked for identification alongside Ryan’s.

In it, Dolan argued that the DA’s letter “directly contradicts” information already in the office’s possession and accused the three assigned prosecutors in the Phan case — Middlesex Assistant District Attorneys Yashmeen Desai, Thomas Brant, and Kyra Kosh — of attempting to “gaslight parties and mislead the public by creating this record.”

While Dolan wrote that he had “not seen any evidence that Marian Ryan was aware of the circumstances” surrounding the crash, he said internal documents show “many people in your office, including your superiors, knew.”

According to Dolan’s letter, records reviewed by the defense indicate that between Feb. 16 and Feb. 28, 2024, “ADA Adrienne Lynch, Chief of the Homicide Unit, and at least a dozen other employees” were aware of a referral from the Disabled Persons Protection Commission and a “criminal screener” regarding Schettino’s death.

He also wrote that on Feb. 2, Brant acknowledged knowing at least that Quigley had been in an accident. Dolan added that both the State Police and Quigley himself contend that Brant knew about the civil lawsuit and the toxicology results shortly after the crash.

“It is two versus one,” Dolan concluded in the letter.

During Monday’s hearing, Judge Chris Barry-Smith said the principal issue was not whether prosecutors knew about the crash — noting they must have known considering Quigley’s role in the office — but when both the State Police and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office became aware of the toxicology results and whether any obligation to disclose them arose earlier.

Dolan argued that the DA’s Office either knew more than it has acknowledged or failed to investigate information he said should have raised concerns.

“Either they sat on something purposefully — which would be an issue — or they did actually know,” Dolan said. “It’s not about knowing about the crash, it’s about knowing that somebody died, that Sgt. Quigley was the operator, and then seemingly either ignoring or knowing and covering up his toxicology results.”

He added that the inconsistencies in the disclosures should be addressed with testimony under oath.

“There are continual inconsistencies in the statements provided by the commonwealth and based on the documentary evidence that is in the discovery, I think we should get a hearing so we can resolve these things,” Dolan said.

He later added outside the courtroom, “I would like to know who knew what when and I’d like to be able to get people on the stand so we can cross-examine these inconsistencies.”

Attorney Lorenzo Perez, who is representing Billoeum Phan, told Barry-Smith that the concerns raised by the disclosures go beyond Quigley and could extend to other members of the State Police Detective Unit that investigated the Phan case.

“Was the unit, many of whom are witnesses in our case, responsible for investigating homicides in the state of Massachusetts complicit, actively covering up the involuntary homicide committed by one of its own, who is also a key witness in this case,” Perez said.

Perez added that he believes the court should wait for the outcome of the Suffolk County grand jury’s review of the crash before proceeding with a retrial, calling Quigley-related discovery “high-caliber potential exculpatory evidence.”

“It goes to credibility, the judgment in the execution of his duties,” Perez said.

Barry-Smith said that was the reason why he halted the retrial on Feb. 3 in the midst of jury selection, pointing out he doesn’t “know where the facts will lead.”

The judge added that Quigley’s role in the Phan case is as a witness, and that the crash investigation is itself different. The information about him, Barry-Smith said, relates to potential “extrinsic evidence of untruthfulness” by one or more witnesses — not to any alleged coverup involving evidence in the Phan investigation itself, a distinction he said would “always be a challenge” for a motion to dismiss.

Desai pushed back on Dolan’s characterization of the disclosures, saying the State Police Human Resources division — not investigators — possessed Quigley’s unredacted medical records for workers’ compensation purposes. Those records, she said, “are not automatic Rule 14” materials.

Desai also addressed the Disabled Persons Protection Commission referral cited by Dolan, noting that it was routed to the DA’s Elder Unit and then forwarded to the Homicide Unit, but that “the accident and the other parties involved is not referenced” in the referral itself.

Barry‑Smith previously denied the defense’s initial motion to dismiss because discovery related to Quigley had begun, but he said Monday he will weigh whether to allow testimony from witnesses about what they knew and when.

He ordered defense attorneys to submit by next Monday a list of the witnesses they would seek to call at an evidentiary hearing and an explanation of why each would be relevant. Prosecutors will have until Feb. 20 to respond, after which the court will set a date if a hearing is granted.

A bail hearing for the three brothers will also be scheduled in the future. The Phans have been held without bail since their arrest in October 2020, and defense attorneys said they intend to argue for their release.

“We think that because the commonwealth didn’t meet their burden in the first trial, and because of all the things going on, they shouldn’t have to wait in jail,” Dolan said.

A tentative new retrial was also scheduled to begin April 27.

The first Phan trial ended in a deadlocked jury in November 2024, forcing a judge to declare a mistrial.

Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.