Last week’s indictments against five Hanceville police officers that also alleged the department engaged in a “a rampant culture of corruption” have no bearing in a federal excessive force lawsuit filed three years ago by a city resident, according to an attorney representing the city and three different officers in the 2022 case.

Greg Burgess, who is representing Hanceville and three officers in the federal case, was responding to Hanceville resident Joshua Phillips’ filing asking the judge in the case to accept the indictments as evidence.

Phillips, identified in his lawsuit as a 39-year-old disabled man from Hanceville, accused officers Kyle Duncan, Josh Howell and Lowell Adam Hadder of excessive force, deprivation of civil rights, unlawful arrest and other allegations.

“There is no connection between the criminal allegations made in the recent indictments and Joshua Phillips’ claims in the civil lawsuit against our clients,” Burgess told AL.com. “The personnel, underlying facts and alleged incidents, and time frames are all different and unrelated.”

Burgess said the city and the officers expect to file a motion to strike and exclude the indictments from the excessive force case “on the ground it is completely irrelevant.”

The officers listed as the defendants in the federal case are not the same ones facing charges in Cullman County.

Hadder, one of the officers named in the federal lawsuit, filed a lawsuit against the city in Cullman County Circuit Court in the summer, claiming chain of evidence was destroyed after he was allegedly forced off the job.

The state cases against the five officers and one of the officers’ wives include allegations of on-duty drug injections, misuse of criminal databases and distribution of controlled substances to each other and to others, according to the indictments.

Hanceville’s police chief, 51-year-old Jason Marlin, is charged with two counts of failure to report ethics crime and tampering with physical evidence. He retired from the Birmingham Police Department where he worked at the South Precinct.

The indictments against Marlin allege that, as the head of the police force, he had a duty to report ethics violations of his officers to Alabama Ethics Commission and failed to do so.

Marlin, according to court documents, also removed or mishandled evidence from the property room.

All six, including Officers Cody Alan Kelso, 33, Drew Shelnutt, 39, Jason Wilbanks, 37, Eric Michael Kelso, 44, and his wife, 63-year-old Donna Kelso, surrendered to the Cullman County Jail Wednesday, and were released on bond.

The announcement of the indictments came after the county coroner said the Aug. 23, 2024 death of a dispatcher in his office was the result of a drug overdose and an 18-member grand jury said the department operated under “a rampant culture of corruption” and should be abolished.

Christopher Michael Willingham, 49, was found dead Aug. 23 in his office. The discovery was made shortly after 11 a.m. that Friday.

Willingham’s body was sent for autopsy at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Huntsville.

Cullman County Coroner Jeremy Kilpatrick on Wednesday said Willingham died from “combined toxic effects of fentanyl, gabapentin, diazepam, amphetamine, carisoprodol, and methocarbamol.”

The manner of death was ruled as an accident.

None of the indicted officers are charged in connection to Willingham’s death.

However, the grand jury found Willingham’s death was the “direct result of HPD of negligence, lack of procedure and disregard for human life.”

“Let me say this, I am not here to defend Chris Willingham, and I am not here to tear him down,‘’ D.A. Champ Crocker said. ”He has a family, friends. He’s been around for a long time.”

Crocker said the “unfettered access that a lot of people had to the evidence room” was the basis of the grand jury’s findings regarding Willingham’s death.