Lawyers for acquitted ex-cop seek to recoup fees

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Lawyers for a former New Orleans police officer who was acquitted of fatally shooting a man without justification in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath are trying to recoup some of their legal fees and expenses.

In a court filing, David Warren’s attorneys claim federal prosecutors engaged in misconduct that warrants compensating them for their work in securing a new trial and acquittal for their client. U.S. District Judge Lance Africk unsealed the filing on Tuesday but didn’t immediately rule on it.

Africk sentenced Warren to nearly 26 years in prison after a jury convicted him in 2010 of charges stemming from the death of 31-year-old Henry Glover.

But a different jury acquitted Warren last month after a federal appeals court overturned his convictions and ordered a new trial. The appeals court said Warren should have been tried separately from four other former officers charged with engaging in a cover-up of Glover’s death.

In a document they filed under seal last Friday, Warren’s lawyers claimed prosecutors engaged in a “systematic, deliberate pattern of prosecutorial misconduct in an effort to buttress a non-existent case in order to secure a conviction.” The defense attorneys accused prosecutors of pressuring witnesses, ignoring evidence favorable to Warren and using “prejudicial and inflammatory” evidence to warp jurors’ perceptions of Warren.

Prosecutors said in a Monday court filing that those allegations are baseless and vowed to “vigorously” oppose the defense attorneys’ effort to recover fees and expenses.

A different officer, Gregory McRae, was convicted in 2010 of burning Glover’s body in a car after a good Samaritan drove the dying man to a makeshift police compound. The same three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that ordered a new trial for Warren upheld McRae’s convictions.

At both trials, Warren testified that he feared for his life when he shot Glover because he thought he saw a gun in his hand. Prosecutors, however, said Glover wasn’t armed and didn’t pose a threat during their encounter outside a strip mall Warren and another officer were guarding.