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Ex-Cop Begins Prison Term In MN For Katrina Cover-Up

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A former police detective who pleaded guilty to helping cover up deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina has started serving a three-year prison sentence.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons says Jeffrey Lehrmann reported Monday to a low-security prison in Sandstone, Minn.

Lehrmann is one of five former officers who pleaded guilty to participating in a plot to make it appear police were justified in shooting six people, killing two, on the Danziger Bridge several days after the 2005 storm's landfall.

He is the first of those five former officers to begin serving a prison sentence.

Lehrmann was a government witness in the trial of five other current or former officers who were convicted last month of civil rights charges stemming from the shootings.

(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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