The owners of a nursing home where 35 patients died after Hurricane Katrina were acquitted Friday of negligent homicide and cruelty charges for not evacuating the facility as the storm approached. The jury took about four hours to acquit Sal and Mabel Mangano, the husband-and-wife owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, just outside of New Orleans. They had faced 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the elderly or infirm after the patients drowned - some in their beds - when the monster hurricane swept through the area.

Judge Jerome Winsberg asked the defendants to stand when the verdicts were read. When Mabel Mangano did so, she buried her face in her husband's shoulder.

Afterward, the Manganos sat back down and hugged each other. Their daughter, Tammy White, sobbed quietly as the victims' family and friends - all wearing black, some with buttons of the picture of the person who died at St. Rita's - sat stoically. None cried.

The couple were the only people to face criminal charges stemming directly from Hurricane Katrina. More than 30 lawsuits have been filed against them by patients injured at the nursing home and the families of people who died there.

The coastal parish was all but wiped out by Katrina's flood waters on Aug. 29, 2005. Prosecutors say the Manganos should have evacuated the home as the storm closed in. Defense lawyers say levee failures and a government that never called a mandatory evacuation are to blame.

The trial even featured testimony from Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who said she had left to local officials the decision of whether to order an evacuation. Prosecutors called her after she fought a subpoena from the owners' attorneys.

The Manganos have said the area had never flooded in the 20 years St. Rita's was in operation, and defense attorney Jim Cobb said that was the basis for their decision to ride out the storm.

"We're talking frail people, people with special needs, people who would be at risk during an evacuation," Cobb said before the trial began. "The Manganos thought they were saving lives by sheltering in place."

Written By MARY FOSTER