New Orleans mayor indicted on fraud charges linked to affair with bodyguard

LaToya Cantrell is accused of ‘defrauding’ the city, paying Jeffrey Vappie arsenic if helium were connected work portion connected trips and trysts.

The politician of New Orleans has been indicted connected conspiracy, fraud and obstruction charges by a national expansive assemblage aft a long-running investigation.

The charges released connected Friday against LaToya Cantrell were based connected accusations that she tried to fell a romanticist narration with bodyguard Jeffrey Vappie, who was paid arsenic if connected work portion the brace conducted their affair.

The indictment states that Cantrell and Vappie “developed a idiosyncratic and intimate relationship” successful 2021, defrauding the metropolis arsenic they attempted to “hide their narration and maximise their clip together”.

Acting United States Attorney Michael Simpson said the brace met successful an flat portion Vappie claimed to beryllium connected duty, and that Cantrell had arranged for Vappie to be 14 trips.

The trips, which included vino tasting astatine vineyards, were described by her arsenic times “when they were genuinely alone”, said Simpson.

He dubbed the matter a “three-year fraud strategy that we allege exploited their nationalist authorization and positions”.

Cantrell allegedly lied successful an affidavit that she had activated a relation connected her telephone that automatically deleted messages successful 2021, erstwhile she had not activated the diagnostic until December 2022, 1 period aft the media began speculating connected the pair’s conduct.

When a backstage national took photos of the brace eating unneurotic and drinking wine, Cantrell filed a constabulary study and sought a restraining order, said Simpson.

The mayor’s bureau didn’t instantly comment.

“This is simply a bittersweet time for the radical of New Orleans,” said Monet Brignac, a spokesperson for City Council President JP Morrell.

Vappie is accused of hiding a romanticist narration with Cantrell and filing mendacious payroll records claiming helium was connected duty.

He has pleaded not blameworthy pursuing his indictment connected charges of ligament fraud and making mendacious statements.

Cantrell, the city’s archetypal pistillate mayor, is term-limited and volition permission bureau successful January.