Federal prosecutors said Monday they intend to retry a Fresno police sergeant and three former officers for brutality and obstruction of justice after a jury was pronounced hung in the case last month.

Another hearing was set for April 15 in the case against Sgt. Michael Manfredi and former officers Sean Plymale, Chris Coleman and Paul Van Dalen, said Lauren Horwood, a Sacramento-based spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In February, a federal jury announced it was hopelessly deadlocked 9-3 to find the officers not guilty of police brutality and obstruction of justice.

"It was a little depressing to hear they would go forward with a new trial," said Marshall Hodgkins, who represented Plymale. "I was hopeful that egos would not get involved here and I was hopeful they would go on to do more important and significant things."

Hodgkins said he doesn't think a second trial will produce a different outcome.

"It will be the same evidence and while it won't be the same jury, the jury will have the same composition and the same arguments being made," he said.

Hodgkins said he is concerned about three of the four clients who paid for private lawyers "because they don't have much more money."

A federal indictment accused Manfredi and Plymale of concealing the alleged excessive force on Rolando Celdon by former officers Coleman and Van Dalen. All four were charged with falsifying an official report to obstruct justice. If convicted, each could have faced up to 20 years in prison.

Celdon was punched and kicked, bitten by a police dog, shot with a stun gun and blasted several times with a bean-bag shotgun in October 2005.