WBRZ - Baton Rouge

Federal officials are charging a former New Orleans police lieutenant with conspiracy to obstruct justice in the investigation of killings by police officers after Hurricane Katrina.

The charge was unsealed Wednesday and is part of a deal under which Michael Lohman has agreed to help in the investigation of a shooting by seven police after Hurricane Katrina that left two people dead and four others wounded at the Danziger Bridge.

The Justice Department's civil rights division opened its probe after a state judge threw out state charges of murder and attempted murder against the seven in 2008. Lohman was not one of the officers charged in that case.