NEW ORLEANS — The federal judge overseeing the New Orleans Police Department’s consent decree has slammed the department for multiple violations of the decade-old agreement in how it handled its internal investigation of Officer Jeffrey Vappie.
Vappie was given two letters of reprimand for administrative violations regarding time clock irregularities working on Mayor Cantrell's security team. Vappie was investigated internally by the department’s Public Integrity Bureau for his hours and pay, but the department stopped short of elevating the probe into a criminal investigation into payroll fraud.
In a contentious three-day court hearing that wrapped up in September, the city and NOPD argued that Vappie was treated the same as any other officer facing a similar complaint. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan disagreed, taking issue a number of NOPD decisions, including not issuing a subpoena for Vappie’s cell phone and failing to investigate his supervisors.
“Throughout this matter, the City has contended that NOPD did not treat Officer Vappie any differently from the way it would treat any other officer going through a PIB investigation. The evidence tells a different story,” Morgan wrote in her 76-page ruling.
Morgan ruled that the NOPD violated 13 mostly technical provisions of the consent decree, including the lack of timeliness of the probe, leaks of confidential information, and failure to share information with the outside consent decree monitors.
However, Morgan withheld sanctions, writing that the new NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick has already submitted a “detailed and thoughtful remedial action plan.”
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