New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell Accused of Having Extramarital Affair With Member of Her Security Team
According to a new court filing, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has been accused of having an extramarital affair with a member of her security team.
This came to light when the wife of New Orleans police officer Jeffery Vappie filed for divorce earlier this month. In her divorce petition, she claims that in November 2022, she became aware of an inappropriate relationship between her husband and another woman identified in court documents as "Mrs. L.C."
A source told Fox 8 in New Orleans that "Mrs. L.C." refers to LaToya Cantrell.
Vappie's wife claims in the filing that her husband has been in an ongoing sexual relationship with "Mrs. L.C." since May 2021. That's about the same time that Vappie joined Cantrell's executive protection team.
Vappie's wife says her husband admitted to the affair to her, according to the petition.
This alleged extramarital affair could have some serious repercussions for both Cantrell and Vappie.
“I think this divorce petition basically raises several ethical and potentially criminal issues for Officer Vappie. And the mayor is caught in the crosshairs of all of this,” said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.
Goyeneche said a relationship between the two could violate several NOPD policies if Vappie's supervisors were not aware. He said that even more severe violations could result if Officer Vappie was not doing the work expected of him by the police department during the time he was clocked in.
“Potentially, payroll fraud,” Goyeneche said. “If he was on city time, padding his payroll. If he was malfeasant in office, he wasn’t performing his official assigned duties while he was with the mayor. Those are some potential state violations.
“And if there are federal violations involved, it could be wire fraud, because he put in timesheets for time that he may not have actually been working. There may be a program fraud because federal funds were used to fund city government and the police department. And if he wasn’t doing his assigned responsibilities during those times, those are potential federal violations. And the mayor is potentially a principal to all of that.”