Houston ? A tour company and its owner were charged Wednesday with conspiracy and other crimes in the deaths of 23 nursing home residents whose bus caught fire as they fled Hurricane Rita.

Global Limo Inc. and James H. Maples were accused in a federal indictment of conspiring to falsify driver time records and failing to inspect the company’s fleet to make sure its buses were safe.

Maples, 65, was arrested and released on a $75,000 unsecured bond. He was not required to enter a plea.

The bus caught fire Sept. 23 on a freeway near Dallas while carrying evacuees from a Houston nursing home as Rita churned in the Gulf of Mexico. The driver and some passengers escaped, but others were trapped when patients’ oxygen tanks fed the flames and exploded.

Those killed accounted for nearly a quarter of the roughly 100 people whose deaths were attributed to the hurricane.