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(Republican file photo)

SPRINGFIELD -- Citing a lack of positive identification and probable cause, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said Thursday his office will not bring charges against the off-duty city police officers accused of beating a group of four men in April 2015 outside Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant -- despite clear evidence that the victims were attacked.

Gulluni said he had no doubt the men were victims of an assault that left one victim, Paul Cumby, with serious injuries, including a broken ankle and loosened teeth.

But, he said, the victims' inability to positively identify their attackers and a lack of video evidence led him to conclude there could be no successful case against the off-duty officers accused of following the men out of Nathan Bill's after a dispute and jumping them in a nearby parking lot.

"I don't have a good faith basis to believe I have probable cause, and it would be unethical for me to bring charges," Gulluni said. "Let me be absolutely clear to you. I am frustrated."

Four off-duty officers were identified as being at the bar about an hour prior to the assault, and two of them -- Daniel Billingsley and Christian Cicero -- were implicated during criminal and administrative police investigations.

But there was no video of the assault and the identifications provided by victims were either uncertain or contradictory, according to the Major Crimes Unit and Internal Investigations Unit reports Gulluni relied on for his criminal review. The available evidence did not support bringing any charges, he said.

None of the four officers implicated in the incident cooperated with the investigation, with all asserting their Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to speak with internal affairs and criminal investigators, Gulluni said.

"I think one could hazard a reasonable guess as to who was the rabble-rouser," said Gulluni. "But our burden of proof is different."

Gulluni said he hopes the victims -- Cumby, his cousins Jozelle and Jackie Ligon, and their friend Michael Cintron -- will receive justice either through civil means or the police department's disciplinary process, which is still pending.

"These folks are victims. Despite that this investigation has to weigh against probable cause and reasonable doubt," he said. "This is the calculus we have to use when we make these kinds of decisions."

While security footage from a nearby Bank of America branch shows police cruisers responding to the fight, no video exists of the assault itself. Investigators did not secure footage from Nathan Bill's, the district attorney's office said.

Daniel D. Kelly, the attorney for Nathan Bill's, said investigators only requested the footage months after the assault -- and after the night's footage had been deleted. The Major Crimes Unit launched its investigation in May 2015, after Cumby filed a complaint with the police department.

"We cooperated with the investigation, however at the time we were notified of the incident it was several months later and the footage is not retained that long," Kelly said. "Nothing happened in the bar or outside in the bar parking lot."

The announcement of Gulluni's findings comes 22 months after the incident, which sparked an internal police investigation and a criminal probe. A total of 12 Springfield officers, including off-duty officers accused in the beating and uniformed officers accused of responding unsympathetically to the victims, were issued administrative charges by the police department, though no disciplinary hearings have yet been held.

12 Springfield officers under investigation for 2015 fight 5 Gallery: 12 Springfield officers under investigation for 2015 fight

Police Commissioner John Barbieri said that with the DA's review complete, those hearings will now move forward.

"The District Attorney's office has made a thorough review of the incident and determined that there is no probable cause to file criminal charges," Barbieri said in a statement. "Absent pending criminal charges, the Police Department Internal Investigation Unit is now free to work with the city Labor Relations Department to potentially re-interview officers and make preparations for an administrative hearing before the Community Police Hearings Board, as soon as possible."

The DA's review found the victims had been drinking at Nathan Bill's the night of April 7, 2015, when Jozelle Ligon became involved in a verbal dispute with another group of patrons over whether Ligon had whistled at or hit on a woman in the other party. The victims told investigators a bar employee identified the other group as off-duty Springfield police officers.

Uniformed police officers who were at Nathan Bill's on an unrelated call confirmed that off-duty officers Daniel Billingsley, Melissa Rodrigues, Christian Cicero and Anthony Cicero were at the bar at 1:15 a.m., about 50 minutes before the assault.

Cumby, Cintron and the Ligons were asked to leave the bar to de-escalate the argument, and about an hour later they were were attacked by a group of men in the parking lot of a Rocky's hardware store a block away from the bar.

Cumby suffered serious injuries including a fractured ankle and four damaged front teeth. Jackie Ligon was hit and kicked in the torso and head while on the ground, and Jozelle Ligon and Cintron had cuts and bruises, according to the DA's report.

"The physical assaults committed by several members of the large crowd were intentional and unjustified," the report said.

Cumby and his group identified the assailants as between eight and 15 white men between the ages of 25 and 45. Cumby filed a complaint with the Springfield Police Department on May 7, and in the following months all four victims were interviewed multiple times by internal affairs and Major Crimes Unit investigators.

All four men were shown photo arrays. Cumby, who said he was struck from behind and knocked unconscious, could not identify any specific attackers, but identified Billingsley as present at the bar.

Jackie Ligon told the Major Crimes Unit on July 17, 2015 that he was 80 to 90 percent confident that Billingsley was the officer he had argued with inside the bar, but did not identify him as an attacker, the report said. Two weeks later, Ligon told internal affairs investigators he saw Billingsley attack his brother Jozelle -- one of the contradictions Gulluni said made it difficult to establish probable cause for charges.

"This is not in my view calling into question the credibility or honesty of the victims," Gulluni said, noting the high bar in securing eyewitness testimony that could survive challenges in court and that everyone involved in the fight had consumed alcohol that night.

While the Major Crimes Unit interviews were recorded on video, the internal affairs interviews were not -- meaning the DA's office was left to rely on the internal affairs officer's summary of the interviews without being able to independently verify what the victims said.

Jozelle Ligon also gave an interview which largely confirmed the stories of his brother and cousin, but included inconsistencies about the timing of the attack and a failure to identify attackers through a photo array of Springfield police officers.

Cintron was not interviewed until April 2016, after an extensive effort to locate him, Gulluni said. Cintron spoke to an internal affairs investigator and could not identify an assailant -- but, he did name Billingsley as being present at the time of the assault.

The level of identifications would not have supported charges under Massachusetts law, the report said.

"The men were beaten about their body and face by fists, shod feet and quite possibly dangerous weapons. As a result, all of the men suffered visible injuries and Mr. Cumby suffered serious injury, as well," the report states. "However, it is also undeniable that the victims' admitted lack of recollection of the events and the assailants, inconsistent versions of the incident, their admitted alcohol consumption, and ultimately and most significantly, their lack of legally sound and positive identifications of those who committed a criminal offense, hamstrings the Commonwealth from initiating a criminal complaint or indictment."

In an interview, Gulluni said evidence turned up during the investigation could still be used against the officers during disciplinary hearings. First Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Fitzgerald said Billingsley called in sick to work the next day with a headache, and another called out with a broken toe.

But investigators did not obtain their medical records to check the source of the injuries, and would have required a court order or the officers' permission to do so.

"If we had been able to identify, would that have been evidence that would have been brought up? I imagine it would," Fitzgerald said.

And the officers' refusal to testify, while not criminally admissible, could be used against them in administrative proceedings, Gulluni said.

In a November interview, Gulluni acknowledged the case had stretched on for too long, but said the responsibility for the delays lay with the police department. His office received the internal police investigation in July 2016 and had agreed not to issue its own findings until then, Gulluni told MassLive.

"I will say that 20 months is less than ideal and the procedure probably isn't perfect," Gulluni said. "You hope that in the future it will be better and it will be cleaner. We will learn from this situation."

The existence of the internal affairs probe into the actions of 12 officers that night was first reported by MassLive in October.