The Honolulu Police Commission voted 4-2 Wednesday against providing legal counsel to a police officer who’s named in a high-profile civil lawsuit.

The suit alleges that Officer Ming-Hung “Bobby” Nguyen and others were part of a conspiracy to wrongly arrest and have prosecuted a man related to Katherine Kealoha, the wife of retired Honolulu Police Department Chief Louis Kealoha.

Commission Chairman Max Sword was joined by members Luella Costales, Eddie Flores and Cha Thompson in voting to reject the request by Nguyen. The four agreed with the recommendation made by the Department of Corporation Counsel, the city’s chief legal adviser, which argued Nguyen’s alleged actions were not done within the scope of his employment as an HPD officer.

Voting to support Nguyen’s request were members Steven Levinson and Loretta Sheehan, the commission’s two attorneys. Levinson, a former Hawaii Supreme Court judge, has tried in recent months to persuade fellow commissioners that more officers are actually entitled to taxpayer-paid attorneys when they are sued because they should be using a broader standard than has been used.

The vote was taken after a lengthy and testy discussion over whether it was proper for the requests made by Nguyen and Detective Daniel Sellers, who is named in the same lawsuit, to be heard in an open session. Traditionally, when city attorneys recommend a police officer not be provided legal counsel, the officer gets the chance to present his or her case directly to the commission in a closed-setting “contested case” proceeding.

The commission, at the advice of city attorneys, voted at its last meeting to make the contested case hearings open to the public — except when an officer “waives” his or her right to have the meeting held in an open session and wants arguments heard privately.

Levinson and Sheehan argued that there was neither legal justification nor compelling reason for the proceedings to be held in secret and that keeping the requests secret violated both the U.S. and state constitutions.

Levinson cited two federal appellate cases and Sheehan raised two state decisions in support of their position. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser also voiced objections to closed-door proceedings in testimony submitted to the commission.

Nguyen attorney Randall Hironaka and Sellers attorney Richard Sing both asked that they be allowed to have their cases heard behind closed doors. But when Levinson and Sheehan threatened to walk out of the proceedings if it were kept behind closed doors, Hironaka asked for time to speak to his client. When he returned to the commission meeting, Hironaka said he and his client were amenable to keeping the hearing open if doing so meant all existing six commissioners would participate in the discussion and participate in the vote.

Sing was scheduled to make his arguments after Hironaka. Sing asked for and was granted the opportunity to make his argument for legal counsel on behalf of Sellers at a later date. Sing said he wanted all six commissioners present to hear his case and that he needed time to formulate an argument why the proceedings should be closed.

Nguyen and Sellers are named in the lawsuit brought by Gerard Puana, who alleges Katherine Kealoha, his niece, and former HPD Chief Louis Kealoha conspired with other officers to frame Puana in the theft of the Kealohas’ mailbox from in front of their then-Kahala residence. Puana’s lawsuit claims he was wrongly arrested, imprisoned and prosecuted to help the Kealohas in a family legal dispute opposite him.

While the Corporation Counsel’s office recommended against providing Nguyen and Sellers legal representation, it recommended that HPD Detective Dru Akagi, another defendant in the civil case, be granted up to $50,000 for city-paid legal counsel. The commission voted to support Corporation Counsel’s recommendation to give Akagi an attorney; and the City Council, the ultimate decision-maker on providing legal counsel, approved the payments earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Levinson grilled Deputy Corporation Counsel Leslie Chinn over why her department chose to recommend legal fees for Akagi, but not Nguyen.

Chinn responded that there was evidence that Akagi was assigned to take part in investigating the theft of the Kealohas’ mailbox, including reports he filed on the theft, while no such information was available in describing the involvement of Nguyen.

The Corporation Counsel also recommended that Louis Kealoha’s request for legal representation be rejected. The former chief’s contested case hearing, however, has yet to be heard by the Police Commission because Kevin Sumida, Kealoha’s attorney, wants Sheehan disqualified from voting on the request because of critical statements she’s made against him and the department. The commission voted to seek an opinion on Sheehan’s involvement from the city Ethics Commission, which has not yet issued a ruling.

The Puana lawsuit is closely tied to a closely watched federal conspiracy investigation that also focuses largely on the theft of the Kealohas’ mailbox.

The case seeking to prosecute Puana was dismissed in 2014, shortly after the chief made an inadmissible statement about Puana while on the witness stand.

Alexander Silvert, the federal public defender representing Puana in that case, turned over his information to the FBI, which triggered federal grand jury proceedings that have now run for more than a year.

In December, former HPD Officer Niall Silva pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiring with others in the mailbox case to alter evidence and falsify records, obstructing a federal prosecution, and making false statements against Puana.