(Photo: AP/John McCusker, The Times-Picayune)

A former New Orleans police officer has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for lying about the aftermath of a deadly shooting outside the city's convention center following Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance sentenced Ronald Mitchell on Wednesday.

Mitchell's attorney, Kerry Cuccia, had said federal sentencing guidelines called for 15 to 21 months in prison. Vance wasn't bound by those guidelines.

Mitchell shot and killed 45-year-old Danny Brumfield outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center less than a week after the 2005 storm's landfall, but he wasn't charged in the shooting itself.

In December, a jury convicted Mitchell of obstruction of justice and perjury for lying when he said he left his patrol car after the shooting and checked for Brumfield's pulse.

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