New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was indicted Friday (August 15) in what prosecutors called a yearslong scheme to hide a romantic relationship with her bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie. He’s not off the hook either! Prosecutors accuse him of collecting that bodyguard check, even when privately meeting Cantrell in apartments and traveling to vineyards with her.
The City of New Orleans said it was aware of the indictment and that the mayor’s attorney is reviewing it.
“Until his review is complete, the City will not comment further on this matter,” the statement said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell hasn’t sent out a message on her official social media feed on X since July 15. At the time, she said the city was experiencing historic declines in crime.
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Charges Against The New Orleans Mayor & Bodyguard
Mayor Cantrell faces charges of conspiracy, fraud and obstruction. This comes less than five months before she leaves office due to term limits. She was the first female mayor in New Orleans’ 300-year history and was elected twice. However, she now becomes the city’s first mayor to be charged while in office.
“Public corruption has crippled us for years and years,” Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Simpson said, referring to Louisiana’s notorious history. “And this is extremely significant.”
Cantrell’s bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, was already facing wire fraud and making false statements charges. He has pleaded not guilty. A grand jury returned an 18-count indictment Friday, adding LaToya Cantrell to the case.
The New Orleans mayor and Vappie have said their relationship was strictly professional, but the indictment portrayed it as “personal and intimate.”
Cantrell & Vappie Exchanged Over 15K WhatsApp Messages
Prosecutors alleged that the secret couple exchanged over 15,000 encrypted messages through WhatsApp to avoid detection and then deleted the conversations. Messages included efforts to harass a citizen, delete evidence, make false statements to FBI agents, and “ultimately to commit perjury before a federal grand jury,” prosecutor Simpson said.
The indictment says that in a WhatsApp exchange, Vappie reminisced about accompanying Cantrell to Scotland in October 2021. That was “where it all started.” They met in an apartment while Vappie claimed to be on duty, and she arranged for him to attend 14 trips, Simpson said. The trips, the prosecutor added, were described by her as times “when they were truly alone.”
Couple Spent $70,000 In City Funds On Travel
New Orleans taxpayers paid more than $70,000 for Vappie’s travel, the prosecutor said.
Authorities cited a September 2022 rendezvous on Martha’s Vineyard, a trip Cantrell took instead of attending a conference in Miami. Vappie’s travel to the island was covered by the city to attend a separate conference. “The times when we are truly (traveling) is what spoils me the most,” the mayor wrote to him that month.
Simpson said Cantrell lied in an affidavit that she activated a function on her phone that automatically deleted messages in 2021 when she really didn’t activate that feature until December 2022, a month after the media began speculating on the pair’s conduct.
When a private citizen took photos of them dining together and drinking wine, Cantrell filed a police report and sought a restraining order, Simpson said.
Vappie retired from the police department in 2024.
Mayor has her defenders
Cantrell and her remaining allies have said that she has been unfairly targeted as a Black woman and held to a different standard than male officials, her executive powers at City Hall sabotaged. Simpson, however, shook off claims that any of it played a role in the investigation.
“It’s irrelevant that it’s romance or that it’s female,” he told reporters, adding that the allegations were “an incredible betrayal of people’s confidence in their own government.”
Cantrell, a Democrat, has clashed with City Council members during a turbulent second term and survived a recall effort in 2022.
“This is a sad day for the people of New Orleans,” Monet Brignac, a spokesperson for City Council President JP Morrell, said as news of the indictment spread.
In 2014, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced to 10 years in prison for bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax crimes. The charges stemmed from his two terms as mayor from 2002 to 2010. He was granted supervised release from prison in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As she heads into her final months in office, Cantrell has alienated former confidants and supporters, and her civic profile has receded. Her early achievements were eclipsed by self-inflicted wounds and bitter feuds with a hostile city council, political observers say. The mayor’s role has weakened following voter-approved changes to the city’s charter meant to curb her authority.
Earlier this year, Cantrell said she has faced “very disrespectful, insulting, in some cases kind of unimaginable” treatment. Her husband, attorney Jason Cantrell, died in 2023.
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Associated Press writers Jim Mustian, Jack Brook, Heather Hollingsworth, and Ed White contributed to this story via AP Newsroom.
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