Years before she was indicted by a federal grand jury, LaToya Cantrell brushed off warnings from associates who feared the New Orleans mayor’s budding romance with her police bodyguard might one day expose her to criminal charges, prosecutors say.
The predictions proved prescient on Friday, when the grand jury accused Cantrell and former New Orleans police officer Jeffrey Vappie of spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on their romantic travels, then scheming to erase evidence of the alleged affair.
The warnings, which Cantrell received in the spring of 2022 as signs of the liaisons became increasingly evident to people around her, came from at least three Cantrell associates, plus one of Vappie’s law enforcement colleagues, prosecutors say. In April of that year, an associate told Cantrell that “using public resources for your personal relationship” could be a crime…