BURGETTSTOWN, Pa. -- Washington County District Attorney John Pettit said his office will not prosecute criminal charges filed against two off-duty Pittsburgh police detectives following a concert at the Post-Gazette Pavilion.

Pettit asked the state Attorney General to take over the case works with both groups of police involved.

Pittsburgh detectives Patrick Moffatt and Joseph Simunovic are good friends and were attending the Toby Keith concert. When the concert ended, there was a brawl involving about six people and Hanover Township police said when they tried to break it up, the detectives assaulted them.

Moffatt and Simunovich were charged with aggravated assault, obstruction, resisting arrest and public drunkeness, among other crimes.

The police reports said when officers identified themselves, the "defendants became very hostile and began to ridicule the on-scene officers and said they did not have to listen to the officers."

Hanover police said Simunovich made "aggressive actions and attempted to assault one of the officers."

Moffatt is accused of tackling another officer to the ground and choking him from behind.

Pettit said he faces a conflict, because he works with both the Hanover Township and Pittsburgh police departments.

In the meantime, the Hanover Police Department is facing yet another lawsuit alleging police brutality.

Pettit said it would be a conflict of interest for him to take the case.

"If we prosecute this case vigorously, which may be what it needs, will Allegheny County detectives and their police officers resent that when they have to work with me on other cases?" Pettit said.

In the past, Hanover Township's officers have been accused of using excessive force at the Post-Gazette Pavilion and the same charge is made in a lawsuit filed Thursday.

In the lawsuit, Jerrold Shafran, of Bradford Woods, said as he was leaving the Jimmy Buffett concert last year, "He was accosted by an individual dressed in civilian clothes screaming that Mr. Shafran had to move."

The lawsuit said that individual, officer Robert Patsilevas, "attacked Shafran, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him."

Initially, Shafran was charged with just disorderly conduct, but the lawsuit claims "after Patsilevas learned that complaints had been made concerning his conduct, he added false, more serious criminal charges, including resisting arrest and simple assault."

But Pettit said he has no problems with Hanover Township police.

"If it was happening repeatedly, it would come to my attention, and we would have reacted accordingly, but so far, it has not come to my attention," he said.

There have been a number of police brutality cases against Hanover Township and Post-Gazette Pavilion owner Live Nation. WTAE Channel 4's news exchange partners at the Tribune-Review report that settlements from those cases amount to nearly $1 million in the last few years.

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