By Janet McConnaughey
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — A former police sergeant admitted on Friday that he helped cover up the fatal police shootings of two people in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina, ending a criminal case that roiled the New Orleans Police Department after the 2005 storm.
Gerard Dugue pleaded guilty to one charge of being an “accessory after the fact to willful deprivation of rights under cover of law,” a misdemeanor.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt accepted the plea agreement’s sentence of a year on probation. He waived a fine, saying Dugue could not afford to pay one, but said he must pay restitution. The judge said he will decide the amount after civil lawsuits filed by victims’ families are resolved. He said he will subtract the civil damages from the fine.
Dugue admitted that he helped Sgt. Arthur Kaufman cover up shootings at New Orleans’ Danziger bridge to avert Kaufman’s arrest, trial and punishment. Dugue retired during the federal investigation.
Kaufman pleaded guilty in April to participating in the cover-up; four other former police officers pleaded guilty in connection with the shootings. Their sentences range from three to 12 years.
An indictment charged Dugue with multiple felonies including conspiracy to obstruct justice. The new charge was in a bill of information — a form often used when a defendant has agreed to plead guilty.
Dugue’s plea averts a trial, which had been scheduled to begin Monday.
The Danziger case, the unrelated shooting death of Henry Glover by police and other incidents of post-Katrina police violence were followed by heightened federal scrutiny of the department.
A 2011 U.S. Justice Department report was highly critical of department policies, training and use of force. The Justice Department and the city reached agreement on reforms in 2012.
The Danziger case also rocked the Justice Department.
The five officers who pleaded guilty in April had been convicted by a jury in 2011. Some were facing decades in prison. However, Engelhardt set aside the verdicts two years later, granting the men new trials because federal prosecutors leaked information to the news media and made anonymous online comments about the case.
Katrina hit Aug. 29, 2005, leading to levee failures that flooded most of New Orleans and sending thousands who hadn’t evacuated in search of higher ground, food and shelter. The police department was under strain and reports of looting and gunfire were common.
Police were answering a call about shots fired at the Danziger bridge as a group was crossing, seeking a safe haven. Six unarmed people were hit. Killed were Ronald Madison, 40, who was mentally disabled, and 17-year-old James Brissette.
Dugue, who was not at the bridge on the day of the shooting, was tried separately in 2012. That trial ended in a mistrial when the judge ruled a prosecutor might have unfairly influenced the jury by mentioning the name of a man beaten to death by a New Orleans police officer in an unrelated case.