Ex-policeman pleads guilty in Katrina killing case

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former New Orleans police detective who now works as a U.S. immigration agent has pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shooting deaths of two people by police days after Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

Jeffrey Lehrmann, 38, pleaded guilty to covering up the shooting and failing to report the conspiracy to prevent discovery of the incident on the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans on September 4, 2005, the department said.

He is the second former New Orleans police officer to plead guilty in the case, and he could face up to three years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Lehrmann admitted that he participated in the creation of a report that included false statements by the officers involved in the shooting, including about the gun that had been planted, according to the Justice Department.

Hurricane Katrina flooded much of New Orleans and killed some 1,500 people when it blasted through the city in 2005. With the city in chaos for days, police officers opened fire on a group of men on the opposite side of the bridge.

The police were responding to a call for help from a fellow officer who said he thought the men were armed, but ultimately investigators found the victims had no weapons and concluded that it was a "bad shoot," according to court papers.

Four others were wounded in the shooting. The first former police officer to plead guilty in the case, Michael Lohman, admitted to participating in the cover-up and is facing up to five years in prison.

A spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that Lehrmann, who has been working in the agency's Phoenix office of investigations since September 2006, has been placed on leave pending an internal investigation.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; editing by Mohammad Zargham and Cynthia Osterman)