A federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment Friday against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, accusing the mayor of pursuing an illicit affair with her police bodyguard on taxpayers’ dime, then lying to federal officials and deleting evidence to hide the relationship.
The indictment returned at New Orleans’ federal courthouse accuses Cantrell of 11 counts including wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to a federal grand jury — all part of the alleged yearslong scheme to hide her relationship with Jeffrey Vappie, the former New Orleans Police officer assigned to protect her. The two face 18 counts total.
Prosecutors secured the charges against Cantrell through a superseding indictment in their ongoing prosecution of Vappie, who was initially charged last summer with wire fraud and false statement counts in the same alleged scheme. Vappie faces additional charges under the new indictment.
Prosecutors in the new 44-page indictment describe Vappie and Cantrell deleting WhatsApp messages, lying to FBI agents and “intimidating” subordinates as they tried to erase signs of their amorous relationship — including trips to a Napa Valley, California, winery and Martha’s Vineyard — during periods when both claimed to be on official duty.
“This indictment does not allege that a relationship constitutes a crime,” said Michael Simpson, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, at a news conference Friday afternoon. “Rather, it reflects the prosecution of two public officials alleged to have engaged in a yearslong, continuing fraud scheme that used public money for personal ends, by exploiting their power and their authority.”
Cantrell’s press staff issued a brief statement late Friday saying that her attorney, Eddie Castaing, is “thoroughly reviewing” the indictment. The administration declined to comment further.
An attorney for Vappie, Shaun Clarke, declined to comment. Vappie pleaded not guilty to last year’s charges, and both he and Cantrell have denied having an affair.
The charges unveiled Friday represent a relatively narrow prong of the yearslong probe into Cantrell's affairs, in which agents scrutinized varied aspects of her spending and political activities, including an alleged bribery scheme that yielded charges against a private electrical inspector last year in which the mayor was never accused. Still, the criminal allegations mark a stunning low point for the Democratic mayor, a former neighborhood organizer whose ascent to the city's top office epitomized changes that swept New Orleans politics following Hurricane Katrina.
Cantrell becomes the second mayor in New Orleans history and its first sitting mayor to face criminal charges. Former Mayor Ray Nagin was found guilty at trial on corruption counts in 2014 after leaving office.
“This will be in the opening paragraph of her legacy,” said Silas Lee, a former Cantrell adviser and pollster who teaches at Xavier University.
The charges pose thorny questions about what comes next for New Orleans’ leadership in the waning months of Cantrell's tenure as mayor. Set to leave office due to term limits in January of 2026, she was already embattled by low approval ratings, legal troubles, a lack of political allies and a series of scandals.
Before Friday, political and legal observers had begun to speculate that Cantrell might escape an indictment. The federal investigation ran up against challenges including changes to President Donald Trump's Justice Department, obstacles in corralling key witnesses and paltry sums involved in two previous corruption indictments that indirectly involved the mayor.
Political veterans and legal observers alike view an indictment of Cantrell as unlikely to prompt her to resign. She has rarely bowed to critics, from holding out on reimbursing taxpayers for some travel to her numerous fights with city lawmakers.
Amid the federal investigation, Cantrell has argued that her race draws criticism that White politicians escape. Being subject to federal scrutiny “seems to be kind of prevalent relative to Black leadership," she said at a news conference in 2023. "I am not exempt from that.”
Personal relationship
The scope of the investigation into Cantrell came into sharper focus through the pair of indictments filed in New Orleans' federal court last year.
In September, prosecutors indirectly accused Cantrell of accepting bribes from a private electrical inspector, Randy Farrell, in exchange for firing a high-ranking city official. Farrell pleaded not guilty, and Cantrell has not been charged in that scheme. The allegations involving Farrell did not appear in the fresh charges against Cantrell and Vappie.
The mayor was described in the first Vappie indictment last summer, which accused him of fabricating time sheets and lying to FBI agents as he sought to conceal the alleged romantic relationship with Cantrell.
In the latest allegations, Simpson said New Orleans taxpayers paid more than $70,000 for Vappie’s travel as he accompanied Cantrell on a series of trips to Napa, Martha’s Vineyard, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Prosecutors accused the pair of deleting some of the 15,000 text and WhatsApp messages they exchanged “to avoid detection and continue their relationship.” They also accuse them of lying to the public and people around them about their affair.
In September of 2022, Cantrell and Vappie discussed whether a reporter investigating their relationship was "on to us," according to messages detailed in the indictment. They later discussed on WhatsApp how they needed to "be careful" and to appear "straight and together."
"Let me know where for lunch to make sure I'm out of sight," Cantrell wrote to Vappie during the Martha's Vineyard trip in September of 2022, according to the indictment.
In March 2022, another member of Cantrell's security detail, who is not named in the indictment, warned Vappie and others on the team that anyone romantically involved with the mayor should end things, because of the effect the relationship could have on the entire team. Vappie responded that there was no relationship.
Cantrell said the same in April 2022 to an associate who cautioned her that the use of public dollars for her alleged affair was illegal. She challenged the associate, who is not named, to "prove to me that I am having a relationship."
Cantrell also approved thousands of dollars in alcohol and meal purchases Vappie claimed from trips where the pair are accusing of spending personal time together, the indictment alleges.
False statements
For the mayor, the most damning section of the indictment may be the accusation that Cantrell lied to a federal grand jury, said Walter Becker, a veteran lawyer and former federal prosecutor. The indictment says Cantrell failed to produce subpoenaed records and lied about their relationship during a grand jury appearance in June of 2024.
"That’s a very serious thing," Becker said. "It is pretty cut and dry, especially if you’ve gotten a subpoena to produce certain records and you didn’t produce them."
The indictment, however, involves smaller sums than many high-profile public corruption cases, Becker noted.
Simpson, the acting U.S. attorney, said the investigation that yielded the fresh charges is “decidedly ongoing.” But Matt Coman, a civil lawyer and former assistant U.S. attorney who led the prosecution of Nagin, said it would be unusual to charge a high-profile public official under another indictment.
“She certainly has the potential for being charged in an additional indictment, should additional evidence become viable and usable,” Coman said. “But after she’s been indicted in this... I can’t recall another public official who’s been indicted multiple times in the same court.”
Yearslong probe
New Orleans local officials mostly responded to Friday’s indictment by emphasizing Cantrell’s right to a robust defense.
"Everyone is presumed innocent under the law,” said City Councilmember Joe Giarrusso. “Mayor Cantrell deserves that presumption. This unfortunately will be sensationalized because it involves the mayor and will further impede the city’s operations. We should, however, let the facts play out and not rush to judgment."
The indictments of people in her orbit, and now of Cantrell herself, followed a series of controversies that set her second term off to a rocky start: her handling of Hurricane Ida, overseas travel on taxpayers' dime and alleged relationship with Vappie.
Her administration also confronted challenges partly outside her control, and her allies have argued that she faces unfair criticism.
The ongoing economic fallout and mass death of the COVID-19 pandemic, a spike in violent crime that tracked national trends and infrastructure troubles that have plagued New Orleans for decades have all harmed constituent morale in the Crescent City, polling shows.
Cantrell has also faced more personal, private struggles as public criticism mounted during her second term.
Her husband, longtime New Orleans lawyer and public defender Jason Cantrell, died suddenly in 2023. The Cantrells had publicly struggled with their finances, with the federal government securing a lien on their house in 2020 over unpaid taxes, and a roofing company doing the same in 2023 over alleged nonpayment for a new roof. In October, Cantrell spoke for the first time in public about having been sexually assaulted as a child and surviving the trauma.
Cantrell's case parallels the prosecution of former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, who resigned in 2018 after pleading guilty to a felony theft charge and after publicly apologizing for having an affair with her bodyguard while on the clock. The bodyguard, Sgt. Robert Forrest, also pleaded guilty to that charge. Barry and Forrest each served three years of probation and repaid the city $11,000 and $45,000, respectively.
Vappie’s indictment in July of last year described the former officer performing internet searches about the Nashville case. In that case, neither defendant is charged with lying to a grand jury.
Cantrell is the third Democratic mayor of a major U.S. city to face criminal charges in the past year.
In September, federal prosecutors charged New York City Mayor Eric Adams with accepting illegal campaign contributions and overseas trips from Turkish officials and businesspeople seeking to curry favor with his office. Trump's Justice Department later ordered federal prosecutors to drop the case.
Prosecutors in Jackson, Mississippi, indicted Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba two months later on conspiracy and bribery charges along with the local district attorney and a Jackson City Council member.