Attorneys for former Mayor LaToya Cantrell and her longtime police bodyguard are fighting a bid by federal prosecutors to lodge fresh evidence in their looming fraud trial, with one lawyer saying the new material seems to have sprung from “a figment of a prosecutor’s imagination.”
In a filing last month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office laid out how it wants a jury to examine two prongs of evidence not directly tied to the pair’s formal charges: How Cantrell spent campaign money on alcohol and clothes, then fudged purchase records; and how the bodyguard and alleged paramour, Jeffrey Vappie, allegedly gifted her a pair of gold rings they later hid from prosecutors.
The new acts are unrelated to formal wire fraud, obstruction and conspiracy charges the defendants face under an indictment returned in August that accused them of spending taxpayer dollars on a series of romantic getaways and an associated cover-up…