Albany

Robert Butler, who faced a potential death penalty after being charged with setting a 2013 fire that killed a man and three children in Schenectady, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against five of the federal agents and Schenectady detectives who were involved in his arrest.

Butler, 31, spent nine months in jail before he was set free in February 2014 without explanation from law enforcement authorities. His release from custody came after information emerged that a St. Johnsville man, Edward Leon, who had a grudge against the man killed in the fire, had lied to detectives and his friends when he denied being at the scene of the early morning fire and hastily driving away as the Hulett Street residence erupted in flames.

Leon later became a focus of the investigation but was never charged. He is serving 10 years in prison for lying to federal agents and a grand jury about his whereabouts on the night of the fire.

He also acknowledged sending a series of anonymous and threatening text messages — using the name "The Undertaker" — to the adult victim, David Terry, 32, who was killed along with his children Layah, 3, and Michael Terry, 2. Donovan Duell, 11 months old, also died. Another of Terry's children, Sa'fyre Terry, who was 5 at the time, survived but suffered extensive burns.

Initially, detectives and federal agents accused Butler of sending the anonymous text messages. But an investigator with the federal public defender's office, which was representing Butler in his criminal case, traced the text messages to a disposable mobile phone that Leon purchased from a downstate pharmacy located along a route he drove for a food delivery company. That investigator, a former Albany detective, also discovered footage from street cameras in Schenectady that captured video of Leon's distinctive, older-model van driving toward the residence where the blaze took place minutes before the fire started.

The federal lawsuit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Albany by Butler's attorney, Raymond Gazer of New York City, accuses the law enforcement officers of false arrest, malicious prosecution and other federal civil rights violations. The complaint names Schenectady Detective Eric Hesch and retired Detectives Paul Steele and Thomas Disbrow, and Mark Maher, Mark Meeks and Jason Stocklas, all agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The 24-page complaint alleges that Schenectady police and the ATF ran a shoddy and hurried investigation that led to Butler being charged with federal capital murder charges. It also alleges that federal ATF agents continually pressured two Saratoga County residents by showing them photographs of the 5-year-old girl who was badly disfigured in the fire and urging them to recant their statements that Butler and three of his friends — who gave statements implicating Butler and themselves in the arson — never left Saratoga Springs that night. Butler maintained his innocence and rebuffed detectives' attempts to get him to admit to setting the fire.

"It's not enough to say, 'We made a mistake,'" Gazer said. "Here it seems they came to a conclusion and their investigation was, through hell or high water, going to lead them to that predetermined conclusion. You would think in an investigation of this magnitude they would follow the leads and let the evidence take them wherever it may go."

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and says that Butler's arrest was based largely on the false statements that detectives and federal agents obtained from Butler's friends during lengthy interrogations.

Federal authorities subsequently charged several of those people with perjury for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury.

After Butler was set free two years ago, U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian's office issued a statement that did not explain why the charges were dropped, citing only the "unusual and complex facts, including information regarding the involvement of others."

No one else was charged in connection with starting the Hulett Street blaze.

Three months ago, Brian Fish and Richard Ramsey, who were both acquaintances of Butler's, were charged with perjury in connection with the bungled investigation. Jennica Duell, the mother of the children who were killed, also was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury. Duell, who was with Butler on the night of the fire, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison.

Like two of the others charged with perjury, Duell gave a detailed statement claiming she and Butler and two other men drove from Saratoga Springs to Schenectady in a borrowed car that night and that she stood by and watched as Butler set fire to the residence where her children were sleeping.

In the wake of the blaze, Duell admitted to the Times Union that she lied to police when she implicated Butler — and herself — in the fatal arson. She said she lied under duress because police threatened to take away her daughter who survived.

The blaze began when someone doused a stairwell of the two-family residence with gasoline and set it afire. Terry was trapped upstairs with the four children.

In an interview with the Times Union in March 2014, Leon denied involvement in the fire but acknowledged having a grudge with Terry, who was planning to marry Leon's ex-girlfriend. He told the newspaper that he initially lied to detectives and his friends when he told them he wasn't at the scene of the fire because he was concerned people would think he was involved.

blyons@timesunion.com • 518-454-5547 • @brendan_lyonstu