Prosecution rests in ‘Danziger 7’ trial

25th July 2011   ·   0 Comments

Federal prosecutors put the finishing touches on what appears to be a very strong case in the fourth week of the trial of five current or former NOPD officers accused of shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Over the course of four weeks, prosecutors presented testimony from former cops who have pled guilty in the case, forensic experts who told jurors of the close-range shootings that took place on Sept. 4, 2005 and the words of several of the victims themselves, including a woman who lost an arm as a result of being shot and a former teen who was shot in the stomach by a cop who was standing over him at the time.

The defense began to present its case late last week.

Months before NOPD Sgt. Robert Gisevius was charged with plotting to cover up the shootings of unarmed residents on the Danziger Bridge, he met a former colleague at a New Orleans bar and shared his suspicion that someone was leaking information to federal investigators, The Associated Press reported.

Gisevius didn’t know that his companion that night, former police detective Jeffrey Lehrmann, was cooperating with the FBI and secretly taping their profanity-laden conversation in November 2009.

“What weak link could sink the ship?” Gisevius asks Lehrmann on the tape, which jurors heard Monday during the federal trial of Gisevius and four other current or former officers. The five defendants are charged in the shootings that killed two people and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge in September 2005.

In response, Lehrmann mentioned the name of an officer who fired his gun on the bridge but wasn’t accused of killing anybody. Gisevius rejected that suggestion, saying the officer’s lawyer was still “in all our meetings.”

“I don’t think he would sink the whole crew,” added Gisevius, who later speculates that “somebody in homicide” was the leak.

Police are accused of shooting unarmed, wounded residents on the bridge as they responded to an officer’s distress call. Lehrmann and four other New Orleans former officers have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up that included a plot to plant a gun, fabricate witnesses and falsify reports to make the shootings appear justified.

FBI Special Agent William Bezak, who narrated portions of the tapes, said Lehrmann was the first officer to cooperate with the federal probe. He already had testified before the grand jury when he met Gisevius at the bar.

On tape, Gisevius speculated that federal investigators were targeting him and six other officers who had been charged in state court with murder or attempted murder char­ges. After a judge dismissed those charges in 2008, the Justice Depart­ment’s civil rights division in Wash­ington opened an investigation.

“You never had a D.C. zealot coming after you who thinks you’re a dirty cop,” he said. “They want a fight, dude? I’m ready to fight.”

Gisevius also said Sgt. Arthur “Archie” Kaufman, now a fellow defendant on trial, “sunk his own ship” by agreeing to talk to federal authorities about the shootings.

Kaufman was assigned to investigate the shootings. On tape, Gisevius expressed hope that Kaufman wasn’t “dumb enough” to leave a “bull—- report” on the shootings stored on his computer, which the FBI searched.

Prosecutors say Kaufman retrieved a gun from his home and turned it in as evidence, claiming it was thrown off the bridge by Lance Madison, whose 40-year-old brother, Ronald, was shot and killed by police.

“If the gun didn’t exist, only two people would know that,” Gisevius said on the tape. “It would be (Sgt. Kenneth) Bowen or it would be Archie, right?”

“Right,” Lehrmann said.

Bowen, Gisevius, Officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon are charged in the shootings.

Gisevius later joked about fleeing to a country where he couldn’t be extradited.

“Australia, maybe?” Lehrmann asked.

“They extradite,” Gisevius said.

Also Monday, as the trial entered its fourth week, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt excused a juror because she is related to the wife of one of the defendants.

Federal prosecutors had asked for the woman to be removed from the 12-person jury. She was replaced by one of four alternates.

Prosecutors said the woman, “due to no wrongdoing on her part,” learned during the trial that she was related to a defendant’s wife.

A court filing Monday by prosecutors didn’t name the defendant or specify how the juror is related to the officer’s wife.

An agent who led the FBI’s investigation of the Danziger Bridge shootings testified Tuesday that he didn’t find any evidence someone shot at the bridge from a nearby grassy area, discounting a scenario that could support officers’ claims they took fire before shooting, The Associated Press reported.

During his second day of testimony, FBI Special Agent William Bezak said he photographed possible bullet marks on the Danziger Bridge’s concrete barrier and metal railing from the grassy area because it appeared a shot could have come from there.

“It appeared to line up,” Bezak said during cross-examination by Eric Hessler, an attorney for Sgt. Robert Gisevius.

“It fits like a glove,” Hessler said.

“That’s why I took the photograph,” Bezak responded.

But the agent said he ruled out that possibility after an FBI ballistics expert examined the scene and determined the mark on the railing couldn’t have come from that direction.

“I have no reason to believe any bullets were fired from that grassy area,” Bezak said.

Defense attorneys claim officers were shot at on the bridge before they returned fire, killing two people and wounding four others several days after the 2005 storm.

Prosecutors say police shot unarmed people as they lay wounded on a walkway behind the concrete barrier on the east side of the bridge. Officers also allegedly conspired to plant a gun, fabricate witnesses and falsify reports to make the shootings appear justified.

Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, who is charged in the alleged cover-up, told federal authorities he found a gun in the grass next to the bridge a day after the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings. But prosecutors say Kaufman retrieved the gun from his home several weeks afterward and tried to pass it off as a weapon belonging to Lance Madison, whose 40-year-old, mentally disabled brother, Ronald, was shot and killed by police.

Defense lawyers lashed out at Bezak for criticizing gaps in the investigation that Kaufman conducted in the storm’s chaotic aftermath. Kaufman and other officers were still rescuing residents trapped by the storm’s floodwaters when the shootings occurred, said his attorney, Stephen London.

“You thought he should drop all that to work on this case?” London asked.

“Absolutely,” Bezak said.

Paul Fleming, an attorney for former officer Robert Faulcon, asked Bezak how many people he would be “willing to allow die” so police could have spent more time on the shootings probe. U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt interrupted and sustained a prosecutor’s objection before Bezak could answer that question.

Earlier in the trial, jurors heard testimony that Gisevius, one of the officers charged in the bridge shootings, was involved in a separate shooting in the storm’s aftermath.

Two former officers, both of whom have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up, testified that Gisevius told them he had fired at people who tried to take a truck he was driving. One of those former officers, Ignatius Hills, said Gise­vius told him he killed the person he shot.

Bezak said he believed Gisevius was involved in a second shooting but didn’t have any physical evidence to support that suspicion.

“I couldn’t find enough information to justify a separate investigation of that incident,” he said.

Sgt. Kenneth Bowen and Officer Anthony Villavaso also are char­ged in the shootings.

Robert Barrios, one of five former officers who pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings, hasn’t testified during the trial. Frank DeSalvo, Bowen’s attorney, asked Bezak if it was true that Barrios’ wife complained to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten that her husband felt pressured to plead guilty and “didn’t do those things.”

“Something to that effect,” Bezak said.

However, Bezak said he spoke to Barrios’ attorney and was assured there wasn’t a problem.

The trial resumed Thursday with a third day of testimony by Bezak. After jurors left the courtroom Tuesday, Engelhardt chided the attorneys for the pace of the proceedings, saying he expected Bezak to finish testifying Monday.

“Your estimates of time and how long things take are just fantasy land,” he said.

On Thursday, Officer Anthony Villavaso’s attorney, Timothy Mec­he, told jurors that federal prosecutors are withholding evidence from jurors that doesn’t fit their theory of what happened on the Danziger Bridge, The Associated Press reported.

Meche pressed FBI Special Agent William Bezak to explain why jurors haven’t heard testimony from several officers who witnessed events on the Danziger Bridge. That claim came as the prosecution prepared to rest its case.

Former officer Robert Barrios, who pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up to make the shootings appear justified, was in the rear of a rental truck that police drove to the bridge in response to an officer’s distress call. Barrios hasn’t testified at the trial, nor have three other officers who were in the rear of the truck and haven’t been charged with a crime.

“And in this case, you all have decided to withhold certain evidence from the jury?” Meche asked.

Bezak said he doesn’t decide which witnesses testify at the trial.

Barrios is the only one of the five officers who pleaded guilty who hasn’t testified at the trial, which started more than three weeks ago.

During Bezak’s third day of testimony, Meche suggested the agent ignored evidence that could be favorable to the defendants.

Bezak testified that Barrios’ wife complained to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten that her husband felt pressured to plead guilty. Bezak said Barrios’ attorney assured him there wasn’t a problem, but the agent conceded he never interviewed Barrios’ wife about her complaint.

Bezak also said he found Barrios’ account of his own conduct on the bridge to be “odd,” but he didn’t elaborate.

Barrios secretly taped a conversation with Villavaso after he started cooperating with the FBI. That tape hasn’t been played during the trial, but jurors have heard a recorded conversation between Sgt. Robert Gisevius — a defendant — and a former detective who has pleaded guilty in the case. Meche suggested the tape of Villavaso’s conversation hasn’t been played because it didn’t incriminate him.

Bezak said Heather Gore, one of the officers in the rear of the rental truck who hasn’t testified, lied to him to protect Gisevius, with whom she once had an “intimate” relationship.

“Her statement was inconsistent with the facts,” Bezak said. “Also, she attempted to get other officers to lie and back up her story.”

The jury also hasn’t heard testimony from Donald Haynes, an officer who was on a high-rise bridge that runs parallel to the Danziger Bridge when the shootings broke out on Sept. 4, 2005. Bezak said Haynes lied to a state grand jury when he said he saw people shooting at the officers on the Danziger Bridge.

“He lied because he wanted to protect the officers and keep them out of trouble,” Bezak added.

Gore and Haynes haven’t been charged with any wrongdoing.

Meche asked Bezak if it’s “problematic” when witnesses tell him something that doesn’t fit the government’s theory of what happened.

“You can’t have them disagree with your theory because maybe your theory isn’t right?” Meche asked.

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Bezak said.

The prosecution rested its case Thursday after calling their final witness, the daughter of Susan Bartholomew, the shooting victim who lost her arm in the Danziger Bridge shootings.

Although the defense has sought to question the prosecution’s decision not to present certain witnesses and attempted to attack the credibility of several witnesses it says gave testimonies that differed from statements they made to investigators early in the probe. The prosecution presented a very strong and compelling case, one the jury will find it difficult to dismiss without an equally powerful case from defense attorneys.

Defense lawyers say the officers were shot at on the bridge before they returned fire.

The defense called its first witness Thursday afternoon as it began to make its case to the jury.

A former head of the NOPD’s internal affairs division says his unit was too busy with search-and-rescue missions after Hurricane Katrina to investigate the Danziger Bridge police shootings in eastern New Orleans.

Testifying Friday, retired NOPD Capt. Donald Curole said “saving lives” was the top priority of the department’s Public Integrity Bu­reau at the time of the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings on the Danziger Bridge and couldn’t investigate.

Curole said then-Superintendent Eddie Compass heard radio calls about the shootings and instructed Sgt. Arthur Kaufman to submit an informal report on the shootings and mark it “NAT,” or “necessary action taken.”

This article was originally published in the July 25, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper