NEW ORLEANS — As speculation heats up that federal authorities are closing in on criminal charges against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, the U.S. Attorney’s office also appears to be zeroing in on Cantrell’s former police bodyguard Jeffrey Vappie.
An email from the outside law firm hired to conduct the most recent internal investigation of Vappie lists four potential criminal charges that have been referred to law enforcement authorities, including public payroll fraud.
The email from Transcendent Law Group to one of the people who filed a formal complaint against Vappie also includes a notation stating “referred externally,” signifying that information about the potential violations were forwarded to criminal authorities. In a surprise move, Vappie retired from the NOPD amid the investigations on June 29.
The email sent Wednesday comes as multiple sources tell WWL Louisiana that a long-standing federal investigation into Cantrell expanded to include Vappie in recent weeks and charges against him may come ahead of any against indictment of the mayor.
“It appears that whatever they're investigating has now kind of gone past the administrative side into the criminal side,” said Justin Schmidt, who filed one of the complaints against that launched the latest internal NOPD investigation. “My interpretation of this is that they've probably been passed on to the Justice Department, FBI, other agencies outside of PIB (Public Integrity Bureau).”
The activities being scrutinized for possible criminal charges go back to Vappie’s two stints as a member of Cantrell’s executive protection team. Irregular hours and duties by Vappie previously led to a lengthy PIB investigation resulting in two letters of reprimand.
That probe was blasted by the federal judge overseeing the NOPD’s 12-year-old consent decree as lacking, noting that failed to follow standard policy and stopped short of many routine steps that could have pushed findings into the criminal realm.
Federal authorities appear to have picked up where PIB left off.
Among Vappie’s activities that led to his reprimand was time he spent serving on the board of the Housing Authority of New Orleans while on the clock for the NOPD.
Here’s an exchange when Vappie was asked by PIB investigators about those hours,
Investigator: “Did that board meeting have anything to do with executive protection?
Vappie: “Absolutely none.”
Investigator: “So the board meeting was strictly HANO issues?”
Vappie: “HANO issues.”
Later in the interrogation:
Investigator: “So is there any reason why you would attend that board meeting while you're on the clock for NOPD?”
Vappie: “Absolutely. With the permission of the mayor. She wanted me to attend those meetings.”
Well after Vappie’s attendance at HANO board meetings, Schmidt filed a complaint against Vappie after confidential information about his client Anne Breaud was included by Mayor Cantrell in a now-dismissed petition for a protective order against Breaud.
Breaud, who lives in the city's Upper Pontalba apartments, snapped pictures from her balcony of the mayor and Vappie seated on the open-air balcony at the Tableau restaurant.
Breaud’s photos, as well as another photo from 2022 of the mayor and Vappie drinking wine at a different restaurant, sparked additional questions about how he handled his executive protection duties.
During the PIB interrogations, Vappie himself said sitting with his back to a restaurant door – as he was in the Tableau pictures – goes against his executive security training.
“Restaurant was very simple,” he told investigators. “My focus would be on the door very simple. And my principal relative to their position to their position to the door,”
Federal agents also recently asked about how the mayor obtained confidential information about Breaud, including her Social Security number, old driver's license photo and an expunged arrest from 2016.
Vappie is now the subject of a that new line of investigation, along with three other officers: Leslie Guzman, who took the initial police complaint by Cantrell against Breaud, Ryan St. Martin of the auto theft unit and Sgt. Victor Gant, supervisor of the executive protection unit.
Transcendent Law Group wrote in its email that it has referred possible charges of computer fraud, injuring public records, and filing or maintaining false public records in regard to that breach.
So what does all of this say about potential criminal charges against Vappie?
“It's been my experience that the more you start to hear, the closer we're getting,” Schmidt said.
WWL Louisiana spoke to Vappie’s criminal defense attorney as well as his attorney with the Police Association of New Orleans, but both declined to comment.