Stephanie Grace (2:58)

I had a job in Philly at the Inquirer that was kind of ending, and I was looking for something interesting to do for probably, you know, a year or two. It ended up being more than that. So New Orleans was interesting.

Jed Lipinski (3:11)

During her career, Stephanie has covered some of New Orleans biggest political scandals, like the case of Bill Jefferson, the New Orleans congressman who used his position to help US Companies land telecom deals in Nigeria in exchange for payoffs. When FBI agents raided his home, they found 90 grand in cash wrapped in foil in his freezer, spawning his nickname, Dollar Bill. After Katrina, Stephanie covered the fall of Ray Nagin, who'd leveraged his role as New Orleans mayor to get truckloads of free granite for his family's granite countertop business, among other perks, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. And so, when rumors began to swirl that New Orleans most recent mayor Latoya Cantrell was having an affair with her security guard, Stephanie covered that, too. She continued chronicling the saga until Cantrell's federal indictment on conspiracy and wire fraud charges last summer. But the Cantrell indictment differs in important ways from those against other corrupt New Orleans officials. Instead of recounting years of bribery and kickbacks, it tells the story of a love affair acted out in an exclusive city owned apartment and hotel rooms around the world. In most corruption cases, the political official is driven by money, power, or both. But in this case, was the mayor simply looking for love? I'm Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. Latoya Cantrell is the first New Orleans mayor in 150 years who was not born or at least raised in Louisiana. She grew up in Compton, but she went to college at Xavier, a historically black university in New Orleans. Like Stephanie, she decided to stay. She married into a local political family and settled in Broadmoor, a racially and economically diverse neighborhood in the heart of uptown.

Stephanie Grace (5:14)

And, you know, the thing to know about it is that it's what we call in New Orleans the bottom of the bowl, which means that when Katrina came, the water gathered there and there was a tremendous amount of flooding.

Jed Lipinski (5:27)

In the months after the storm, city leaders faced the huge challenge of rebuilding. A key part of that was deciding which neighborhoods to fully rebuild and which might be Converted into parks and green spaces. A panel of national experts laid out a reconstruction strategy, a map of which was later published on the front page of the Times Picayune. It would become known as the green

Stephanie Grace (5:49)

dot story because there was a big

Podcast Host 2 (5:52)

graphic and it had green dots where

Stephanie Grace (5:56)

the idea was these are areas that were low lying.

Podcast Host 2 (5:59)

You could make them kind of retention areas, parks, green space. But then when the flooding came, you

Stephanie Grace (6:05)

know, that's where the water would gather

Podcast Host 2 (6:06)

and you wouldn't have houses there.

Stephanie Grace (6:08)

So what happened is people picked up the paper and saw there was a

Podcast Host 2 (6:12)

green dot on their house when they

Stephanie Grace (6:14)

were trying to come back.

Jed Lipinski (6:16)

The Broadmoor neighborhood was covered in green dots. For residents who just lost everything, it felt like the city had decided their homes weren't worth saving.

Stephanie Grace (6:25)

So it really became a rallying cry

Podcast Host 2 (6:28)

in a lot of areas, but very much in Broadmoor, because it was really this defiance. It was that, you know, you can't tell us we can't come back to our neighborhood.

Jed Lipinski (6:36)

Latoya Cantrell has always had an interest in civic life. Her grandmother brought her to community meetings when she was little. By the time Katrina hit, she was the president of the Broadmoor improvement association, and she led the neighborhood's recovery effort. She helped reopen a local charter school and drove the rebuilding of the neighborhood library, which featured a coffee shop called the Green dot cafe.

Podcast Host 2 (7:00)

So by doing this, Cantrell ended up interacting with people at major universities and she went to the Aspen Institute, and she kind of became a public figure that way, and someone who really kind of fought the system and helped her neighborhood come back, which was a great way to kind of launch a city council campaign.

Jed Lipinski (7:21)

Cantrell was elected to the city council in 2012 and re elected two years later. On the council, she bolstered her reputation as someone who could get things done in tough situations. In 2015, she led the push to ban smoking in New Orleans bars and restaurants. She faced serious opposition from the city's powerful bar and casino lobby, but she framed the ban as a matter of public health and workers rights.

Stephanie Grace (7:47)

She, you know, always had kind of a populist streak. So the idea was this was something to protect the people who work in horrors and the musicians, the people who are exposed to the second hand smoke all the time.

Jed Lipinski (8:00)

Based on her success with the city council, Cantrell entered the 2017 mayor's race. She faced a former municipal court judge who was backed by the city's political establishment. But Cantrell won with 60% of the vote, becoming the first woman ever Elected mayor of New Orleans.

Latoya Cantrell (8:18)

So this win tonight is not for me nor my family. This win tonight is for the city of New Orleans.

Jed Lipinski (8:29)

Cantrell's victory upended south of the historic voting patterns in the city, meaning she got a lot of support from the city's white community. She was less polished and less politically connected than her opponent, but many voters saw that as an asset.

Stephanie Grace (8:44)

What people seemed to like about Latoya was that she seemed very real and grounded and down to earth. And, you know, she kind of had some policy chops, but also was just kind of, you know, she would dance in street parades and things like that. She would drop the F bomb. People complained about that a lot, but, you know, there was a thing about her kind of a rawness that I think a lot of people liked.

Jed Lipinski (9:09)

As she took office in 2018, Cantrell's future as mayor seemed full of promise. The city was still clawing its way back from Katrina. Streets were full of potholes, the budget was a mess, and the crime rate, as usual, was too high. Cantrell's tough hands on style seemed right for the moment. But running New Orleans is. Is not for the faint of heart. The city has a way of chewing up its leaders and has brought many seasoned politicians to their knees. It was a fair question to ask whether Cantrell was up to the task. In her role as a political columnist, Stephanie closely covered Cantrell's first term as mayor. Overall, Stephanie says she did a pretty good job.

Stephanie Grace (9:51)

It was fine. It was not spectacular. She had some early wins.

Jed Lipinski (9:56)

One of those wins had to do with the city's perennially cash strapped Sewerage and Water Board, the agency responsible for the city's drainage and drinking water. For locals, it's a constant source of headaches, from street flooding to water main breaks to boil water advisories.

Stephanie Grace (10:12)

The issue is it's an old city with old pipes and a lot of them are broken and they leak and you end up with kind of imploded streets or you end up with boil water advisories if the water pressure goes too low. So, you know, those were happening not totally frequently, but it's a tourist city people would come to. A friend of mine got married and there was a boiled water advisory that weekend so all his guests couldn't use the water. I mean, you know, things like that.

Jed Lipinski (10:38)

In her first year as mayor, Cantrell pushed through a deal to shore up the sewerage and water board. It included $50 million up front and 27 million per year for repairs and street work, and was greeted with some relief by residents weary of broken pumps and collapsing streets. But the headaches continued. There were 10 boil water advisories in 2019 alone. That same year, a cloudburst flooded streets citywide. Meanwhile, the city's murder rate continued to climb. And two years into her first term, the Hard rock Hotel, an 18 story tower under construction near the French Quarter, suddenly collapsed, killing three and injuring dozens more.

Latoya Cantrell (11:20)

And now to the devastating scene in New Orleans where rescue crews remove the body of a man killed when the Hard Rock Hotel collapsed. A second body is still and it

Stephanie Grace (11:30)

sat there for months and months because they had to do the investigation. So the bodies were still inside. And it's right downtown, it's right in a prominent corner on Canal Street. And you know, there were some questions about the city permitting office and how they handled that project and other projects.

Jed Lipinski (11:51)

On one hand, broken water mains and collapsing buildings were par for the course, something you sign up for by living in New Orleans. But on the other, they were harbingers of more bad things to come.

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Stephanie Grace (13:20)

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News Reporter (15:22)

It was early March when the first case of COVID was first detected in the city of New Orleans, but it is widely believed by medical experts that Covid was here and undetected before then.

Jed Lipinski (15:36)

As we've mentioned, Latoya Cantrell's first term as mayor of New Orleans was full of ups and downs, but it's but its defining event was the outbreak of COVID 19.

Stephanie Grace (15:45)

New Orleans, if you remember, was an early hotspot that when everything shut down in March, what happens before March? February? What happens in February? Mardi Gras, which means a lot of people are in very close quarters and a lot of people come from other places. So Mardi Gras ended up being a super spreader event. Nobody knew it at the time.

Jed Lipinski (16:06)

Two weeks after Mardi Gras, New Orleans hospitals were seeing a surge from COVID infections. By late March, the city posted the highest per capita death rate from COVID in the US as it did in other cities. The outbreak had a disproportionate impact on New Orleans black community. Stephanie says Cantrell took it all very hard. During a press conference, she said one of the city's earliest Covid victims was a friend of hers. She made the tough call to shut the city down.

Stephanie Grace (16:36)

It's a tourist city that Was difficult. It's a social city, it's a gathering city. But she was pretty tough, and the numbers did come down, and she got a lot of props for overseeing the city's response. People really approved of that. That was probably her high point in terms of popularity among her constituents.

Jed Lipinski (17:00)

Cantrell ran for reelection in 2022 and won with 64% of the vote, more than she'd gotten during her first race. But this time, Stephanie says, voters seemed less enthusiastic.

Stephanie Grace (17:12)

There wasn't a lot of opposition that formed, but by the time the election actually happened, things were starting to turn somewhat. By the time people were voting, I think, you know, you would hear people wish that she had a real competitor.

Jed Lipinski (17:25)

Just months into her second term, the controversies began. In July of 2022, she flew first class to the French Riviera to sign a sister city agreement and to attend a local jazz festival. Her team defended it as tourism promotion, but the international trips continued and she insisted on flying first class. That fall, the city attorney said she was on the hook for $30,000 in flight upgrades. Cantrell refused to pay, claiming her safety required it.

Stephanie Grace (17:56)

The travel was a number of issues. It was kind of this. It was taken as entitlement that she deserved to have. Have upgraded travel on the city dime. While things at home were not great, she became very involved in kind of international circles on climate change, which definitely affects New Orleans and is a very important issue here. But, you know, it felt very opportunistic that she would go to France and then she would go back to France. I mean, kind of a number of things that collectively created the feeling that things were. Were just not working here. And meanwhile, off she goes again.

Jed Lipinski (18:35)

More problems followed. The murder rate surged to number one among major US cities, renewing complaints about staffing shortages. At the nopd, there were issues over short term rentals, infrastructure spending. By the summer of 2022, a group of residents launched a recall campaign to have her removed from office.

Stephanie Grace (18:57)

It was a former aide of hers who led it. There were people who were very angry and very enthusiastic about the recall and lined up around the block to, you know, sign the petition, sign the papers, to get it on the ballot. And it ended up being kind of racially divisive because you would, like, turn on the TV and you would see, like, huge lines of white people who wanted to sign this thing. It was more mixed in the black community. So that just kind of created a racially tense situation in a city that kind of often has those.

Jed Lipinski (19:29)

The recall effort dominated headlines for months it fizzled when organizers didn't get enough signatures to force a vote. But an even bigger story soon took its place. This one about Cantrell's use or misuse of a city owned apartment. The apartment, located in a Parisian style row house with cast iron balconies, overlooks Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter. It's reserved for official functions like receptions and hosting visiting dignitaries.

Stephanie Grace (19:58)

I mean, you're not supposed to live there for one thing. You're not supposed to stay over if you're the mayor. And she was spending a lot of time there with one of her bodyguards, basically a New Orleans police officer named Jeffrey Vappe, violating a number of rules. One is that her protective detail is not supposed to go inside with her and they were not supposed to stay

Jed Lipinski (20:19)

over, but that's exactly what they were doing. And people quickly figured it out because in the French Quarter, security cameras are everywhere.

Stephanie Grace (20:29)

It's a big tourist area, it's a big business area. So a lot of this was caught on tape. You know, he would go pick up her dry cleaning, things like that. And some of the TV stations started running stories about this with footage.

Jed Lipinski (20:41)

In response, the New Orleans City Council, where Cantrell had been an outspoken leader for years, ended the mayor's access to the apartment. They later ordered the locks changed. But Cantrell's relationship with her security guard wasn't confined to the apartment. On the pretext of official business, she and Vappe traveled the country and the world together. Miami, San Francisco, Scotland, Argentina.

Stephanie Grace (21:05)

He was going on trips with her, and the city was paying. And there were a lot of questions over the payroll documents he was charging for overtime when they seemed to be, you know, having a personal relationship.

Jed Lipinski (21:22)

What made this even more awkward was that Cantrell and Vappe were both married to other people. It was an open secret that Cantrell's marriage had been on the rocks for years. People had gotten used to seeing her out with her teenage daughter, but not her husband. In a statement, Cantrell insisted that Vappy's presence on the trips was, quote, a matter of safety, not of luxury. Adding, as all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone. Cantrell's husband never publicly responded to the rumors, but Vappe's wife did.

Stephanie Grace (21:56)

Jeffrey Vappe's wife filed for divorce and named Latoya Cantrell in the divorce papers.

Jed Lipinski (22:02)

The NOPD's Public Integrity Unit opened an investigation. They pulled Vappe off the mayor's security detail. But the mayor's office pushed back. A few months later, he was reinstated. By 2024, there was a sense in New Orleans that Mayor Cantrell had basically checked out. Local stations reported that federal agents were circling, issuing subpoenas and asking questions about her and her bodyguard. Everyone was waiting for the indictment. In July, it finally landed, but Cantrell's name wasn't on it.

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News Reporter (24:20)

Officer Jeffrey Vappe Former NOPD Officer Jeffrey Vappe Indicted on federal Charges we don't know what the federal charges are at this time. This happened about 20 minutes ago at the federal courthouse. We do have numerous crews there.

Jed Lipinski (24:33)

In July 2024, Latoya Cantrell's personal security guard, Jeffrey Vappe, was indicted by a federal grand jury. He was charged with seven counts of wire fraud and one count of lying to the FBI. Prosecutors said he filed false timesheets and got paid for hours he didn't work while assigned to Cantrell's security team. The indictment didn't mention Cantrell by name, but it referred repeatedly to a public official. A It was pretty obvious who they meant.

Stephanie Grace (25:03)

She was kind of an unindicted person in there, but you could tell who it was and it certainly seemed like they were trying to get him to flip on her. He did not.

Jed Lipinski (25:12)

Vappe pleaded not guilty the court set his trial for that fall. For Stephanie, the indictment was remarkable for what it revealed about Cantrell. I mean, public official a and the way she wielded power as mayor. For instance, early in her second term, the city's chief of police retired, and Cantrell appointed a woman named Michelle Woodfork to serve as interim chief. During the probe into Vappi's timesheet and conduct issues, Woodfork had publicly reprimanded him a few times.

Stephanie Grace (25:42)

She was Jeffrey Vappe's supervisor and she did a report that implicated him in some wrongdoing, and she was asked not to do that, and she stood her ground.

Jed Lipinski (25:55)

Woodfork was a veteran NOPD commander with 30 years on the force. Many saw her as a shoo in for the permanent police chief job. But after her criticism of Vappy, Cantrell wound up choosing someone else. And she made sure Vappe was there to hear it.

Stephanie Grace (26:10)

When Mayor Cantrell told Michelle Woodfork that she was not going to get the job permanently, she called her into a meeting and Jeffrey Vappe was there. So, I mean, it was kind of a dominance ritual. It was basically like, you messed with my man. What seemed to be the implication? And she did not get the job. So it was really insulting to Michelle Woodfork, who seemed to be trying to, you know, follow the rules and do the right thing and hold him account.

Jed Lipinski (26:38)

Due to the volume of evidence in the case, Vappy's trial was pushed back to the summer of 2025. He had not implicated Cantrell, but an indictment naming her seemed inevitable. In the meantime, Cantrell and the city suffered some painful losses. Cantrell's husband, who was rumored to have struggled with addiction issues, died of a heart attack. Then on New Year's Day, as the city was preparing to host the Super Bowl, a rented pickup truck bearing an ISIS flag plowed into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street.

Christian Cordero (27:09)

New Year's Day terror attack in New Orleans. The city holding a vigil overnight for the victims as we learn more about the suspect behind the wheel, ABC's Christian Cordero.

Jed Lipinski (27:19)

Fourteen people died and dozens were injured. The FBI labeled it a full scale terrorist attack. That summer, the indictment everyone had been waiting for finally dropped. Cantrell was charged with conspir wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Prosecutors said she and Vappy spent more than $70,000 in city funds on trips, hotels, and perks and then tried to cover it up.

Christian Cordero (27:49)

What was your reaction when the indictment came out naming the mayor?

Stephanie Grace (27:54)

The thing that Struck me immediately in reading through it was how just intensely personal it is. You know, you got a very clear sense on a human level of what was happening reading this indictment that they were having this relationship. They were taking trips together under the guise of official business. The big thing they did, of course, is they tried to cover their tracks. Once the Feds started asking questions, they did not allegedly tell the truth, and they allegedly deleted Messages. They used WhatsApp. And they kind of had this idea that those messages would not be stored. Of course they were stored, and the Feds have them. And, you know, there's kind of an 8, 9 month stretch when there were 15,000 messages between the two of them. And they're, you know, they're flirty, they're romantic, they are, you know, what you would expect of two people in that situation.

Jed Lipinski (28:49)

In one exchange, not long after the media began speculating about their relationship, Cantrell sent Vappy a text reading the times when we are truly alone, traveling are what spoil me the most. In another, Vappe described a business trip they took to Washington, D.C. as another great trip and another leg on our journey, adding that he loved her and their physical relationship. As the indictment put it, just reading

Christian Cordero (29:16)

it through earlier today, it was kind of a document chronicling a love affair on many levels. I mean, they are clearly, judging from the correspondence that they have here, this is a couple that's clearly in love. They wanted to be together. And in some ways it's kind of tragic because they weren't really allowed to be together in this intimate way. At least during this time, they were flirting with danger.

Stephanie Grace (29:42)

You know, the fact that they weren't allowed to be together made it more romantic. I mean, again, there are so many different movie scripts. It could be, or, you know, kind of trashy novel scripts. It could be.

Jed Lipinski (29:54)

The indictment also makes clear that people close to Cantrell and Vappe had warned them not to break the law. In 2022, a member of the mayor's security unit sent a group text to others on the team saying that anyone having an affair with the mayor should stop because of the detrimental consequences it could have. According to the indictment, Cantrell and Vappe later confronted the person and denied they were together. Days later, one of Cantrell's associates, who was apparently aware that she was sleeping with Vappy, told her it was a felony to have her lover's travel paid for by the city. The associate pointed out that the mayor of Nashville had recently gone down for something similar after admitting to an extramarital affair. With her own head of security, she'd been forced to resign and gotten three years probation. Please don't let this be your path, latoya, the associate wrote. Cantrell texted back, please don't accuse me.

Stephanie Grace (30:50)

You know, what was so interesting was there were people trying to help her, and she could not accept the help, did not see that. She often turned on the people who were trying to warn her, who were trying to help her. And there was a how dare you criticize me, how dare you question me attitude about the whole thing.

Jed Lipinski (31:09)

In the lead up to Cantrell's indictment, New Orleans was braced for something big. Twelve years earlier, Mayor Ray Nagin had been indicted on 21 counts, including bribery, wire fraud and money laundering. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison. But Latoya Cantrell's indictment was a much different read. And according to Stephanie, it left the city divided.

Stephanie Grace (31:31)

So it ended up being this kind of question of, is she being prosecuted for having an affair, for having sex? I understand what the feds are doing in trying to draw all these elements together, but when you read this, you see a human being, you see a human being's private story splashed out there in public, you know, almost maybe mocked even, you know, 15,000 messages. It's a lot, you know, and you could look at it and say, haha, 50,000 messages. But, you know, are there going to be people who are going to say that's too much and that is personal? I don't know. I do wonder how jurors could react to that.

Jed Lipinski (32:13)

For people following the arc of Latoya Cantrell's career, it's been easy to get caught up in the drama of her affair with Jeffrey Vappe. But that's only part of the story. It didn't explain her growing combativeness or what looked to many like a near total withdrawal from the day to day work of governing. To columnist Stephanie Grace, there were other, less sensational reasons for that. Reasons rooted in power and the search for her next job.

Stephanie Grace (32:38)

I guess what I would say about the mayor's job in particular is that it's a big job. If you can master it, you rule the school. But it's also, there are a lot of temptations. You know, you are in charge of giving out contracts without really a lot of oversight. So that means people want to please you to get contracts. You know, it can really go to your head,

Podcast Host 2 (33:05)

you know, and something else

Stephanie Grace (33:06)

I'd say, and this would maybe connect it to Ray Nagin, who was of course indicted and convicted after he left office, she always had money troubles. And one of the reasons a lot of people think she was kind of working this circuit, this kind of international climate change circuit. I mean, I think she enjoyed being a featured speaker at big events. I mean, a lot of people would.

Podcast Host 2 (33:29)

But also she was kind of looking for her next career.

Stephanie Grace (33:31)

She was looking for where she would land. And again, that's another distraction. When you have a city that has a lot of needs.

Latoya Cantrell (33:38)

I want you who've been just so frustrated to just hold on. Just hold on, because we're about to take this city in a whole new

Stephanie Grace (33:45)

direction so that you can always, always

Latoya Cantrell (33:48)

call New Orleans home.

Jed Lipinski (33:54)

Days before we spoke, Stephanie had covered New Orleans most recent mayor's race. The winner was a young woman named Helena Moreno, a former TV reporter turned politician. Like Cantrell, Helen Moreno had served on the city council prior to running for mayor. Unlike Cantrell, she's financially stable and well connected. She ran her campaign on restoring stability after years of turmoil at City Hall. But if Latoya Cantrell has taught us anything, it's that a candidate and a mayor can be two very. If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email us@gonesouthpodcastmail.com that's gonesouthpodcastmail.com for bonus content. You can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram at Gone south podcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack at Gone south with Jed Lipinski. Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Leah Rees, Dennis, Matty Sprung, Keyser and Lloyd Lockridge. Our story editor is Katie Mingle. Gone south is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff. Thank you for listening to Gone South. No time for full TV shows. TikTok has endless short dramas you can watch anytime. Fast paced, easy to follow and hard to stop. Download TikTok now and start watching.

Katie Ring (35:52)

Some crimes are so shocking, they don't just make headlines, they forever change our society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes released every Tuesday through Thursday. From the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.