Mike IX

The Danziger Bridge federal trial continued Thursday morning with a defense attorney questioning the FBI’s lead investigator on the case and accusing him of withholding evidence.

Attorney Timothy Meche pressed FBI Special Agent William Bezak on why federal prosecutors hadn’t played a number of secretly-recorded conversations between accused officers for the jury and why the government had yet to call other involved officers to testify.

Bezak, one of the last few witnesses to testify on behalf of the government, responded that prosecutors, not him, choose what to unveil at trial. He later noted that his case files fill four bookcases and that if he was to present everything he knows, the trial would take much longer.

It was Bezak’s third day on the witness stand in U.S. District Court.

Meche, who represents accused officer Anthony Villavaso, highlighted minor contradictions between the narrative of events offered by officers who have pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government. Bezak acknowledged a handful of such contradictions.

The defense attorney also pounced on the fact that Robert Barrios, who implicated other officers in the allegedly unjust shooting and cover-up, has not testified.

Bezak, who previously characterized Barrios’ account of his conduct as odd, again noted he does not choose who testifies.

Meche also attempted to paint Bezak as uninterested in witness statements and evidence that did not fit a supposed government theory of the case.

Bezak denied the allegation, saying some officers lied in order to protect their colleagues. He named two officers in particular: Heather Gore and Donald Haynes.

Gore, who was in the back of the commandeered panel truck that responded to the scene, lied in an interview, Bezak said. “Her statement was inconsistent with the facts also. She attempted to get other witnesses to lie and back up her story.”

Gore and accused Sgt. Robert Gisevius were longtime friends and had previously been “intimate,” Bezak said.

Haynes, who watched the police shooting unfold from the nearby Interstate-10 high-rise bridge, acknowledged lying to investigators in the state case surrounding the incident.

Gore and Haynes have not been charged. Gore is still on the force, while Haynes resigned from the NOPD in October 2008.

The trial is now in its fourth week of testimony. Attorneys for the five accused officers will begin presenting their defense once the government rests its case, possibly as soon as this afternoon.

Villavaso, Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, former officer Robert Faulcon and Sgt. Robert Gisevius are on trial for unjustly shooting shooting six civilians, two of them fatally, on the Danziger Bridge a few days after Hurricane Katrina. They, along with Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, are also charged with covering up the incident.