Justice moved slowly for the victims of police shootings on the Danziger Bridge the Sunday after Hurricane Katrina. It took six years after Ronald Madison and James Brissette were shot to death and four other people were wounded for the case to go to trial. 
 
 Now the families apparently will have to endure a new trial for five New Orleans police officers convicted in the shootings and the cover-up that followed. 
 
 U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt Tuesday ordered the retrial for former officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso as well as Arthur Kaufman, who was convicted of orchestrating the cover-up. 
 
 The judge acknowledged the seriousness of throwing out the jury's decision but said "grotesque" prosecutorial misconduct required him to do so. 
 
 Although former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and several of his top aides stepped down months ago amid a scandal over online comments, the judge's ruling was stunning. According to the 129-page ruling, Mr. Letten knew that former first assistant Jan Mann had made comments on NOLA.com long before he acknowledged he did. 
 
 That would make him party to unethical behavior he had claimed to know nothing about. It also would mean he lied to the public and to Judge Engelhardt. 
 
 In addition, the ruling revealed that a U.S. Justice Department lawyer assigned to monitor the case made online comments under a pseudonym about the Danziger case. That is an ethical breach. 
 
 Neither Ms. Mann nor Sal Perricone, who was the first Letten assistant to come under scrutiny for improper online comments about federal cases, were directly involved in prosecuting the Danziger case. 
 
 Barbara "Bobbi" Bernstein, deputy chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, led the prosecution. 
 
 But Judge Engelhardt said the collective abuses -- which the judge described as "the truly bizarre actions of government counsel" -- demanded that he order a new trial. "This case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law, and corruption of the criminal justice system; unfortunately, though the focus has switched from the accused to the accusors, it has continued to be about those very issues." 
 
 It is a shame that the case has come to this. Mr. Letten and his top aides let down not only the families of the victims but the community as a whole. 
 
 Dr. Romell Madison, Ronald's brother, expressed frustration Tuesday. Not only did Dr. Madison's family lose Ronald, his brother Lance was held at gunpoint on the bridge by officers and was falsely arrested for attempted murder of police. 
 
 "We are extremely disappointed in Judge Engelhardt's decision granting a new trial ... This decision re-opens this terrible wound not only for our family but our entire community. 
 
 "From the beginning of this ordeal our family has sought justice, not just for ourselves, but for all the victims and families. We urge the Department of Justice to appeal Judge Engelhardt's decision," Dr. Madison said in a statement. 
 
 
 
 It is unclear what the Justice Department will do next. The department issued a statement Tuesday expressing disappointment in the ruling and saying it would look into possible options. 
 
 It is crucial for prosecutors to continue to pursue the Danziger case. What happened on the bridge was horrific. The people who were attacked weren't armed. They didn't threaten police. Yet officers opened fire on them. They shot off Susan Bartholomew's right arm, shot Leonard Bartholomew in the back of the head, Lesha Bartholomew in the side and Jose Holmes in his abdomen, hand and jaw. 
 
 And they started almost immediately trying to cover up their mistakes. "We can't have this looking like a massacre, " a supervisor who arrived at the bridge told the driver of the truck that had brought the officers to the bridge. 
 
 Five officers pleaded guilty in the case. Their convictions still stand. Five more who had been found guilty apparently now will have to stand trial again. 
 
 "Our fight for justice continues," Dr. Madison said in the family's statement Tuesday. The Justice Department must carry on that fight -- and must make sure everything is done properly this time. 
 
 
 
 ||||| For many metro area residents, the day when former police officers were convicted for their roles in gunning down unarmed people on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina marked a cathartic moment. 
 
 On Tuesday, however, a federal judge toppled those hard-won convictions, not citing faulty evidence, but because of the "grotesque" conduct of prosecutors who never even talked to the jury. 
 
 In an order upending one of the region's most important civil rights cases in years, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt granted a new trial for five former New Orleans Police Department officers convicted in the Danziger Bridge shooting and the subsequent cover-up. 
 
 In a 129-page order that blasted former prosecutors in then-U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office, Engelhardt pointed to "unprecedented events and acts" that "has taken the court on a legal odyssey unlike any other." 
 
 The order granted a new trial for former police officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso as well as Arthur Kaufman, who was convicted of orchestrating the cover-up after being assigned to investigate the shooting. 
 
 All were tried and convicted of civil rights violations for their roles in the Sept. 4, 2005, shooting, following a weeks-long trial in 2011 that included emotional testimony of a man who watched his brother lay dying on the U.S. 90 bridge where people had sought shelter days after the storm. 
 
 Attorneys for the officers celebrated the ruling Tuesday as a step toward justice. 
 
 "The government was determined to get convictions in this case and did anything and everything ethical or not in their attempt to reach their desired verdict," said Villavaso's attorney, Roger Kitchens, echoing comments from other defense lawyers. 
 
 The Department of Justice in a statement said: "We are disappointed with the court's ruling. We are reviewing the decision and considering our options." 
 
 Relatives of Ronald Madison, one of two men killed at the bridge, were dismayed. 
 
 "This decision re-opens this terrible wound not only for our family but our entire community," said Madison's brother, Romell Madison, in a statement. "We urge the Department of Justice to appeal Judge Engelhardt's decision. Our fight for justice continues." 
 
 The former officers sought a new trial last year, citing among other examples the revelations that prosecutors in Letten's office had authored disparaging comments on NOLA.com about defendants in several criminal cases, including the Danziger case. 
 
 Those revelations, and other instances of alleged misconduct, prompted Engelhardt in late 2012 to call for a criminal probe of former prosecutors Sal Perricone and Jan Mann. Tuesday's order, however, revealed new instances of misconduct. 
 
 Engelhardt wrote that Karla Dobinski, a veteran trial attorney in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., had also posted online comments during the trial. The order also cited testimony by Mann that she told then-U.S. Attorney Jim Letten that she had posted online comments, shortly after the scandal over Perricone's posts began in March 2012. 
 
 That's the first indication that Letten may have known about the misconduct months earlier that he has publicly acknowledged. Letten did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday. 
 
 "The case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law, and corruption of the criminal justice system," Engelhardt wrote in his decision alluding to the Danziger prosecution. "Unfortunately, though the focus has switched from the accused to the accusors, it has continued to be about those very issues. After much reflection, the court cannot journey as far as it has in this case only to ironically accept grotesque prosecutorial misconduct in the end." 
 
 Engelhardt also acknowledged the weight of his ruling and the importance of the Danziger case. The trial in 2011 capped the prosecution of several cases of police misconduct and abuses of power in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. That made the prosecutorial misconduct "all the more astonishing," Engelhardt said. 
 
 Storm survivors under siege 
 
 The Danziger Bridge shootings illustrated the chaos that took hold of parts of the metro area after Katrina. 
 
 Days after the storm, police issued a call reporting that people were shooting at some officers near the Interstate 10 high-rise over the Industrial Canal. Several officers piled into a rental truck and headed to the scene. As they reached the Danziger Bridge, the officers - including Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso - got out of the truck and began shooting at civilians, according to trial testimony. 
 
 Seventeen-year-old James Brissette was killed, and four others -- Jose Holmes, 19, his aunt, Susan Bartholomew, his uncle, Leonard Bartholomew III, and a teenage cousin, Lesha Bartholomew - were wounded. Two brothers, Lance and Ronald Madison, were walking on the bridge, and when they heard the gunfire began to run. The officers chased the brothers down, and injured Ronald, who was later fatally shot in the back as he tried to run away. Lance Madison was arrested and accused of firing at police. 
 
 The accusations against Lance Madison were later deemed to be part of a police cover up and dropped. 
 
 Seven officers were first indicted in state court in 2008, but federal authorities took the case over after a state judge dropped those initial charges. 
 
 In 2010, some of the officers took plea deals, and revealed details of a widespread cover-up that included fabricated witnesses, a planted gun and falsified reports. 
 
 At trial in 2011, five officers were convicted of numerous counts of civil rights violations. 
 
 Faulcon, who fired a shotgun blast to the back of Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally challenged man, got the stiffest sentence, 65 years in prison. Kaufman, who was involved only in the subsequent cover-up after being tapped to investigate the shooting, was sentenced to six years. Bowen, who opened fire with an AK-47, and Gisevius, who opened fire with an M-4 rifle, were each given 40 years. Villavasso, who fired with an AK-47, was given 38 years. 
 
 Their convictions came under fire in May of 2012, when defense attorneys alleged the government "engaged in a secret public relations campaign" designed to poison the reputation of the NOPD in the public eye. They alleged that top prosecutors were posting inflammatory comments about the case under anonymous monikers on NOLA.com. 
 
 Their allegations came just months after Perricone was outed as the man behind an electronic trail of vitriolic tirades against subjects of federal probes, including those in the Danziger case. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mann was later found to also have posted comments on NOLA.com, though she did not post about the Danziger case. 
 
 In November of 2012, Engelhardt ordered an investigation into the online commenting scandal and into possible leaks in the Danziger investigation. John Horn, a high-ranking prosecutor in Georgia, was tapped for the job. 
 
 Engelhardt's order Tuesday referenced portions of the Horn reports, which unearthed the third anonymous poster from the Justice Department. Dobinski, a veteran member of the Civil Rights division was tasked with ensuring the rights of a police officer - Bowen -- were not violated during the course of the federal investigation as he had given certain testimony in the state case that could not be used against him. 
 
 U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Barbara "Bobbi" Bernstein, who was the lead government advocate in the Danziger case, declined comment Tuesday. 
 
 Defense attorneys for the defendants hailed the ruling, and expressed shock and disgust at the extent of misdeeds laid out in the order. 
 
 "We hope the government does the right thing and decides not appeal the judge's decision, and not to seek a new trial," said Rogers, the attorney for Villavaso. He said he intends to seek his client's release on bond. 
 
 Harry Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney in New Orleans, said a decision to grant a new for five defendants who have already been convicted and sentenced is extremely unusual and is indicative of the seriousness of the misconduct that poisoned the case. 
 
 "You never expect a motion granting a new trial in criminal proceeding, because it's so rarely granted," Rosenberg said. "It's rare to see a federal judge grant a new trial after verdicts of guilty and sentencing. It's even rarer to see this kind of criticism of the Department of Justice by a federal judge." 
 
 Bennett Gershman, a Pace University professor and an expert on prosecutorial misconduct cases, said the account of misdeeds detailed in the order is "one of the most hard-hitting condemnations of the conduct of the Justice Department and several prosecutors in the Justice Department than I've ever seen," calling the order a "powerful expose of sleaziness, dishonesty and misconduct." 
 
 "This case is so unique for so many reasons," Gershman said, "This is heavy-handed coercive conduct." 
 
 The judge gave the parties a month to get scheduling issues worked out so a new trial date could be set. 
 
 Staff writer Manuel Torres contributed to this report. ||||| More than two years ago, federal prosecutors exchanged hugs and held hands with victims' relatives after a jury convicted five former New Orleans police officers of civil rights violations stemming from deadly shootings on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina. 
 
 FILE - In this June 22, 2011 file photo, retired New Orleans police Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, center, enters Federal court for the start of jury selection in his trial, in New Orleans. A federal judge on Tuesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In Jan., 2007 and June, 2011 file photos, five New Orleans police officers are seen in a combination of photos, in New Orleans. From left: Robert Faulcon Jr., Robert Gisevius Jr., Kenneth Bowen,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2007 file photo, people make their way over the Danziger Bridge and into the Lower 9th Ward section of New Orleans during a Hurricane Katrina remembrance march, two years after... (Associated Press) 
 
 But a judge threw out those convictions Tuesday and ordered a new trial for the officers, concluding the case had been tainted by "grotesque prosecutorial misconduct." 
 
 Romell Madison, whose mentally disabled brother, Ronald, was one of two unarmed people gunned down on the Danziger Bridge, said the family is "extremely disappointed" and urged the Justice Department to appeal the judge's ruling. 
 
 "Our fight for justice continues," he said in a statement. 
 
 Sherrel Johnson, whose 17-year-old son, James Brissette, also was shot and killed by police on the bridge, said she was stunned by the ruling. 
 
 "Is my son going to get a new lease on life? Is he coming back? What about the mental anguish that these people put us through?" she asked during a telephone interview. "It is not fair to make us sit through that again." 
 
 In a 129-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt said at least three government attorneys posted anonymous comments on a New Orleans newspaper's website, creating a "carnival atmosphere" that "distorted and perverted" justice in the case. 
 
 "The public must have absolute trust and confidence in this process," he wrote. "Re-trying this case is a very small price to pay in order to protect the validity of the verdict in this case, the institutional integrity of this court, and the criminal justice system as a whole." 
 
 Less than a week after Katrina's 2005 landfall, police shot and killed Madison and Brissette and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge. Five former officers cooperated with a Justice Department investigation and pleaded guilty to engaging in a cover-up to make the shootings appear justified. 
 
 After a jury convicted five other former officers in 2011, their attorneys argued that prosecutors' online comments and leaks to news organizations were part of a "secret public relations campaign" that deprived their clients of a fair trial. 
 
 Engelhardt granted their request for a new trial, though he called it a "bitter pill to swallow." 
 
 "The government's actions, and initial lack of candor and credibility thereafter, is like scar tissue that will long evidence infidelity to the principles of ethics, professionalism, and basic fairness and common sense necessary to every criminal prosecution, wherever it should occur in this country," he wrote. 
 
 Former police Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius and former officers Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon had been convicted of charges related to the shooting and cover-up. Retired Sgt. Arthur "Archie" Kaufman, who was assigned by the police department to investigate the case, wasn't charged in the shootings but was convicted of orchestrating the cover-up. Engelhardt sentenced them to prison terms that ranged from six to 65 years. All five are serving those sentences. 
 
 Villavaso's attorney, Tim Meche, said he hopes the Justice Department re-evaluates whether the case should be retried. "The judge's opinion validates our belief that this case was a perversion of justice," Meche said. 
 
 Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said prosecutors were disappointed. 
 
 "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options," she said in a statement. 
 
 Former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten resigned in December 2012 after two of his top deputies _ Sal Perricone and Jan Mann _ acknowledged they had posted anonymous comments on nola.com, The Times-Picayune's companion website, about cases their office had handled, including the Danziger Bridge investigation. 
 
 Mann, who was Letten's top deputy, told Justice Department investigators she told Letten about her posts shortly after Perricone's activities were exposed in March 2012. Mann said Letten "didn't have a big reaction" to her confession, according to the judge's ruling. 
 
 During a hearing in June 2012, Engelhardt said it appeared federal prosecutors didn't conduct a "full-blown investigation" after The Associated Press and The Times-Picayune published articles about former officer Michael Lohman's guilty plea while his case was under seal. Lohman pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up of the shootings. 
 
 The Justice Department appointed John Horn, a veteran federal prosecutor from Georgia, to conduct a new probe of the allegations. 
 
 Horn's investigation revealed Karla Dobinski, a Washington-based attorney in the Justice Department's civil rights division, posted anonymous comments on nola.com during the last week of the trial. Dobinski wasn't part of the government's trial team but testified at an April 2011 pretrial hearing. 
 
 Engelhardt said he was shocked by the revelation and cited it as a key factor in his decision to order a new trial. 
 
 Horn also had asked that the two news organizations disclose their sources of information about Lohman's anticipated guilty plea, but both have refused. 
 
 In a footnote to his ruling, Engelhardt said the news organizations "perpetuate the viability" of the officers' bid for a new trial "and support its merit by implication" by refusing to identify their sources. 
 
 The AP's outside counsel in the case said the news organization stands by its position. 
 
 "Judge Engelhardt may be frustrated by the Justice Department's respect for the reporters' privilege in this case, but that privilege exists to promote the flow of important information to the public. A refusal to recognize the privilege would surely cause significant sources of information to dry up, to the great detriment of all of us," said David Schulz of the firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz. 
 
 "The AP's consistent position seeks to ensure the public has the information it needs for our democracy to function," Schulz said. 
 
 Late Tuesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed New Orleans attorney Kenneth Polite as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The office had been run by veteran federal prosecutor Dana Boente since Letten's resignation. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Kevin McGill and Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed to this report. ||||| NEW ORLEANS — Citing “grotesque prosecutorial misconduct” on the part of federal lawyers here and in Washington, a judge on Tuesday threw out the 2011 convictions of five former police officers who had been found guilty in a momentous civil rights case of killing two citizens and engaging in an extensive cover-up in the days after Hurricane Katrina. 
 
 In a heated 129-page decision, Judge Kurt D. Englehardt of Federal District Court here declared that federal prosecutors had created a “prejudicial, poisonous atmosphere” in making anonymous online comments before and during the trial at nola.com, the Web site of The Times-Picayune, and ordered a new trial for all five officers. 
 
 The decision represented the collapse, for now, of a case that was seen as symbolizing both the profound breakdown of law and order after the hurricane and a deep rot within the city’s police department that dated back well before the storm. 
 
 While a scandal over anonymous online commenting had already cut short the federal careers of two local prosecutors and the United States attorney himself, Tuesday’s decision identified another, previously unknown commenter: a veteran lawyer in the Department of Justice in Washington who had a role in preparing the case for trial. 
 
 Photo 
 
 “This case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law and corruption of the criminal justice system,” the decision read. “Unfortunately though the focus has shifted from the accused to the accusers, it has continued to be about those very issues.” 
 
 The vacating of the 2011 convictions, which were hailed by the city’s officials and by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., was another setback for a wide-ranging federal campaign to reform the New Orleans Police Department and hold some of its officers accountable for past abuse. A consent decree mandating full-scale departmental changes, announced with fanfare by the city and the Justice Department last summer, is now being appealed by city officials, who said they were unaware of the costs of a separate decree being negotiated that concerns the troubled city jail. 
 
 The most notorious of several criminal investigations concerned the shootings on the Danziger Bridge on Sept 4, 2005, when the streets were still flooded and citizens were scavenging for basic supplies. Responding to a distress call, officers raced to the bridge and, according to testimony of witnesses, opened fire without warning, leaving four badly injured and James Brisette, 17, and Ronald Madison, a mentally disabled 40-year-old, dead. Trial witnesses described the cover-up that followed, beginning at the scene with the arrest of Ronald’s brother, Lance Madison. 
 
 The case wound its way through the system, first falling apart in state court over grand jury improprieties before being taken over by federal prosecutors in 2008. Four officers — Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon — were eventually convicted in connection to the shooting itself. Another, former Detective Arthur Kaufman, was convicted for his part in the cover-up. 
 
 Judge Englehardt, who declared a mistrial last year in the case of another officer involved in the Danziger case, had long been critical of the prosecution. At the defendants’ sentencing last year, the judge, an appointee of President George W. Bush, criticized federal prosecutors for the plea deals that had been offered to cooperating witnesses, among other things. 
 
 Some of these criticisms were raised in Tuesday’s decision, but the main objections concerned the behavior of prosecutors online. 
 
 That someone in the United States attorney’s office had been anonymously commenting on nola.com was first revealed in the spring of 2012 by lawyers representing the target of a high-profile corruption investigation. The revelations were the talk of New Orleans as lawyers identified a longtime assistant United States attorney, Sal Perricone, as a prolific and rather acerbic commenter under several handles. The targets of his commentary were varied and included the police department, which he called “corrupt,” “ineffectual” and “a joke.” 
 
 Several months later, Jan Mann, the office’s second-highest-ranking prosecutor, was also revealed to have been commenting anonymously. In the wake of this disclosure, Jim Letten, at the time the longest-serving United States attorney in the country, stepped down. 
 
 Neither Mr. Perricone nor Ms. Mann was a part of the federal trial prosecution team. But the defendants, citing Mr. Perricone’s extensive online comments about the case, had already requested a new trial. 
 
 After Mr. Letten’s resignation, the Justice Department announced that John A. Horn, a federal prosecutor from Georgia, would be investigating the office for misconduct relating to the commenting scandal. The judge describes his dissatisfaction with Mr. Horn’s findings, four times sending questions back that he wanted Mr. Horn to answer. It was over the course of this back and forth that Mr. Horn reported that Karla Dobinski, who since 1985 has been a trial lawyer in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, had commented several times on nola.com under the name “Dipsos.” 
 
 Ms. Dobinski had an important role leading up to trial, as the lawyer in charge of the so-called “taint team,” which among other things ensured that testimony given by police officers under immunity was not later used against them (the failure to do so is what fatally compromised the case in state court). 
 
 Ms. Dobinski was in Washington during the trial and did not appear to have made the sort of provocative online remarks made by Mr. Perricone or Ms. Mann. But in the last week of trial, she urged along certain nola.com commenters who were following the trial and were strongly in favor of the prosecution. Judge Englehardt suggested that the discovery of Ms. Dobinski’s commentary was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” 
 
 In a statement, a Justice Department spokeswoman expressed disappointment with the ruling, saying that the department was reviewing the decision and considering the options. 
 
 “It’s almost unbelievable,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, adding that the risks of social media are a frequent discussion topic among lawyers. “This is the most dramatic danger sign that we’ve had come along.” 
 
 In a statement, Dr. Romell Madison, the brother of Ronald and Lance, urged the Justice Department to appeal. 
 
 “This decision reopens this terrible wound not only for our family but our entire community,” his statement read. It concluded, “Our fight for justice continues.”
– In a month, the five former New Orleans police officers found guilty in the killing and subsequent cover-up of two people after Hurricane Katrina will learn when they go back on trial—unless the Justice Department gets involved. A judge yesterday threw out the men's 2011 convictions in the Danziger Bridge case, citing "grotesque prosecutorial misconduct" in a 129-page decision the New York Times calls "heated." Judge Kurt Engelhardt gave both sides a month to figure out their scheduling issues in advance of setting that new date—though the family of Ronald Madison, one of the men killed, has urged the DOJ to appeal the judge's decision, noting that it "re-opens this terrible wound not only for our family but our entire community." The Times-Picayune notes that the DOJ did release a statement yesterday indicating it was not happy with the ruling; it's reviewing both the decision and its options, per a rep. The misconduct: Federal prosecutors in New Orleans and Washington made anonymous online comments about the case, both before and during the trial, on the Times-Picayune website, creating what the judge called a "prejudicial, poisonous atmosphere." (Sample: One lawyer commented that the police department was "corrupt," "ineffectual," and "a joke.") The online comments were first revealed last year; the US attorney whose Louisiana office was involved stepped down, as did two local prosecutors who made comments. But yesterday, the judge revealed a previously unnamed commenter: a DOJ lawyer in Washington who helped ready the case for trial. In an article calling the judge's reversal a "bitter pill" for Katrina survivors, the Times-Picayune notes that none of the prosecutors involved ever addressed the jury.