Updated 12:25 p.m. March 28 to clarify New York State Police and Inv. Gary Snell are not part of the pre-acquittal lawsuit

Hillary, a former Clarkson soccer coach, was acquitted of second-degree murder in September, having been accused of strangling to death 12-year-old Garrett Phillips in Potsdam on Oct. 24, 2011.

He claims his constitutional rights were violated during the investigation. He alleges he was unfairly singled out as a suspect and denied basic rights of the accused during questioning.

During the trial, the defense raised questions about his treatment at the hands of Mark Murray, who in 2011 was a lieutenant and is now Potsdam PD’s acting chief, and state police Inv. Gary Snell.

Hillary’s attorneys, Norman Siegel and Earl Ward, on two different occasions during press conferences during the trial last fall said Potsdam Police treated Hillary “like an animal” and likened what they saw on security videos to the slave trade.

“He was strip-searched and treated like an animal … paraded in front of five cops,” Ward said following court on Sept. 21.

“White cops,” Siegel interjected.

“It was like something out of the slave trade,” Ward said.

That occurred in the days after Phillips died. Hillary had been called to the Potsdam Police Department to answer some questions. He tried to leave, and video footage played at trial shows Inv. Gary Snell get up and stand in front of the door when Hillary tried to exit an interview with him and Murray. Murray testified that he didn’t “know what Mr. Snell’s intentions were.”

Snell and New York State Police are not defendants in this lawsuit.

Hillary asked for a lawyer during the questioning but he was never given one, Siegel said, which would violate his constitutional rights.

“Once you invoke the right to council, the questions stop until the lawyer comes, and these people didn’t do that,” the attorney said following closing statements on Sept. 22.

Thomas Mortati, who is representing the Village of Potsdam, said Hillary will have to be deposed by him and several other lawyers, which earlier in March he said he thinks “will be somewhat eye-opening.”

A videotaped deposition of Hillary from earlier in the civil suit process was used as evidence against him during the murder trial. The prosecution claimed he made numerous contradictions about where he was and what he was doing while the murder took place.

In a separate civil case, Hillary is also trying to sue more than 40 local government and law enforcement officials in a second lawsuit he filed after the verdict. He filed notice in January with St. Lawrence County and the Village of Potsdam alleging “false arrest, investigation, malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, falsification of evidence, concealment of exculpatory evidence,” the document says.

Due to insufficient postage, the defendants named in the post-acquittal lawsuit were not served court papers on time.

Judge Mary Farley is expected to rule if the case can move forward in the next month or two. More details about that are here.

The defendants in that case include St. Lawrence County District Attorney Mary Rain, St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells, St. Lawrence County Sheriff Deputy John Jones, former Potsdam Police Chief Edward Tischler, former Potsdam Police Chief Kevin Bates, Acting Potsdam Police Chief Mark Murray, New York State Police investigators Gary Snell, Theodore Levison and Timothy Peets, former state police Crime Lab Assistant Director Julie Pizzaketti, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, 10 unidentified St. Lawrence County employees, 10 unidentified St. Lawrence County District Attorney’s Office employees and 10 unidentified St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department employees.