A federal magistrate judge has settled a dispute among insurance companies as to which has financial responsibility to provide coverage for Cambria County in a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Kevin Siehl of Johnstown.

Siehl spent 25 years in prison for murder before his conviction was vacated in 2016 by Senior Judge David Grine of Centre County.

Siehl, through Philadelphia attorney Jonathan H. Feinberg, four years ago filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Johnstown, citing multiple civil rights violations by Johnstown City and Pennsylvania State police who arrested Siehl, and the prosecutors, employed by Cambria County, who tried him in 1992 for the murder of his estranged wife, Christine.

The Siehl lawsuit was moving toward trial until a dispute arose over which insurance companies have financial responsibility to cover Cambria County.

That complex question put a temporary halt in the Siehl lawsuit last December as U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan of Pittsburgh, who is presiding over the case, reviewed the various filings by the insurance companies.

Lenihan last week ruled that Westport Insurance Corp. of Overland Park, Ks., and Twin City Fire Insurance Co. of Hartford, Ct., “have a duty to defend Cambria (County) in the underlying action.”

She found that a third insurance fire, National Casualty Co. of Columbus, Ohio, does not have a duty to defend the county.

As explained by Lenihan in a 33-page opinion, the civil rights lawsuit “alleges multiple instances of misconduct and civil rights violations by defendant Cambria County and its employees, which led to Mr. Siehl’s conviction.”

Cambria County throughout the years has had many different insurers providing coverage, and when the county infomed the insurers of the Siehl case, each claimed they did not have a duty to defend the county.

Christine Siehl was found stabbed to death in her Johnstown apartment on July 14, 1991.

Kevin, who was with her the previous night, reported he had dropped her off at her apartment and returned to his parents’ home in Johnstown.

He proclaimed his innocence throughout the investigation, but evenutally was charged with Christine’s murder.

Siehl was convicted on May 16, 1992, and was sentenced to life without parole.

During the next 25 years, Siehl continued to maintain he was not Christine’s killer.

With the help of the Innocence Project, he was able to discredit a fingerprint found on the showerhead of Christine’s apartment that police contended was his.

The prosecution contended Siehl had blood on a shoe he was wearing that night, which proved to be not true.

At the time DNA testing was a new science, but investigators never submitted the ample blood evidence at the scene for DNA testing, allegedly due to the cost.

Lenihan in her opinion summed up the civil rights lawsuit by stating Siehl contended he was convicted … “partly based on what (he) alleges were falsified statements and withheld forensic evidence.”

The incident that led Judge Grine to toss Siehl’s conviction was defense requests during post-conviction hearings seeking “any lab work” done in the case.

The prosecution repeatedly maintained that the results of all lab work had been provided to the defense, but after review of Siehl’s case in 2009 by the U.S 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, it was revealed that during Siehl’s 1992 trial, police had done further testing on Siehl’s shoes.

As pointed out in the Lenihan opinion, “the notes related to the testing showed that the prosecution’s reliance on some of the forensic evidence may have been unsupported.”

Those test results were withheld from the defense.

Part of the Siehl lawsuit asks for financial damages for injuries that occurred to him in prison.

Those injuries were not only physical but included “mental anguish, and deprivation of his rights.”

Lenihan’s task included pinpointing which company was providing insurance coverage for Cambria County at the time of Siehl’s arrest, at the time of the alleged coverup of the in-trial shoe test, and at the time he suffered injuries in prison.

Lenihan, for instance, denied the Twin City argument that there was only one cause of Siehl’s injuries — his malicious arrest.

During his post-conviction hearings the prosecution could have revealed the laboratory notes from the in-trial test that was conducted, Lenihan stated as she explained the charges in the Siehl case.

“Defendants allegedly chose to withhold the evidence … Mr. Siehl’s post-conviction motion was denied as a direct result of the defendants’ actions,” the magistrate judge stated as she explained why actions beyond the initial malicious arrest involved more than one insurance company.

Siehl, at age 66, died in March, but his civil lawsuit is being carried forward by his son, Kevin Siehl II of Windber.

Feinberg stated last month Siehl’s entire family “intends to fully pursue the accountability for which Mr. Siehl fought for so long.”

The next step in the Siehl lawsuit will be a telephone conference among the lawyers scheduled for June 27.