New Orleans mayor indicted over allegations of trying to hide relationship with bodyguard
Cantrell faces charges of conspiracy, fraud and obstruction, less than five months before she leaves office due to term limits. The first female mayor in New Orleans' 300-year history was elected twice but 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 charges of wire fraud and making false statements. He has pleaded not guilty. A grand jury returned an 18-count indictment Friday that added Cantrell to the case.
They're accused of exchanging encrypted messages through WhatsApp to avoid detection and then deleting the conversations. The mayor and Vappie have said their relationship was strictly professional, but the indictment portrayed it as 'personal and intimate.'
App captured dreamy chats
The mayor's office didn't immediately respond to a phone message or email from The Associated Press seeking comment on the charges Cantrell hasn't sent out a message on her official social media feed on X since July 15, when she said the city was experiencing historic declines in crime.
In a WhatsApp exchange, the indictment says, Vappie reminisced about accompanying Cantrell to Scotland in October 2021, saying that was 'where it all started.'
Cantrell and Vappie used WhatsApp for more than 15,000 messages, including efforts to harass a citizen, delete evidence, make false statements to FBI agents, 'and ultimately to commit perjury before a federal grand jury,' Simpson said.
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, he added, were described by her as times 'when they were truly alone."
New Orleans taxpayers paid more than $70,000 for Vappie's travel, the prosecutor said.
Together on an island
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 active 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's 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.
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