Shaun Ferguson sought to restore Vappie to mayors team just before retiring

Publish date: 2024-07-15

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Former NOPD Supt. Shaun Ferguson sought to reinstate Officer Jeffrey Vappie to Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s security detail just before retiring last December, but the transfer was temporarily blocked by interim replacement Michelle Woodfork, a police official testified Tuesday (Sept. 5) before a federal judge.

The revelation came during the second day of testimony at a federal consent decree hearing before U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan. Federal monitors and the judge have questioned whether the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau complied with the consent decree in its now-closed investigation into possible payroll fraud or other violations by Vappie.

Vappie, one of the subjects of Fox 8′s “Outside the Office” investigation, was found to be spending many hours both on and off the clock alone with the mayor inside the city-owned Upper Pontalba apartment in the French Quarter.

While detectives handling the department’s internal investigation found “beyond a preponderance of evidence … Vappie violated NOPD rules and regulations,” the consent decree monitor told the judge in a June report that the PIB investigators should have done more digging.

NOPD Deputy Supt. Lawrence Dupree testified Tuesday that Ferguson, in one of his last acts while heading NOPD before retiring in mid-December last year, requested Vappie be reinstated to the mayor’s detail even though the PIB investigation was still ongoing.

Dupree said he didn’t feel comfortable reinstating Vappie before the close of the investigation, and that he waited to ask Woodfork after she was appointed by Cantrell as the NOPD’s interim superintendent. Dupree testified that Woodfork put a stop to the reassignment.

Woodfork reassigned Vappie back to the mayor’s detail in June, after the PIB investigation was closed and Vappie received letters of reprimand for department policy violations.

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The first witness called Tuesday was NOPD Lt. Lawrence Jones, who was one of two PIB investigators tasked with overseeing the high-profile investigation into Vappie last year.

The PIB investigation resulted in three violations being sustained against Vappie, including a violation of the 16:35 rule (which states officers cannot work more than 16 hours and 35 minutes in a day) and a “professional conduct” rule for spending so much time alone with Cantrell while off the clock.

“If I had found evidence Officer Vappie had committed a crime, this would have shifted from an administrative complaint investigation to a criminal complaint investigation,” Jones said.

Jones maintained no factual evidence was gathered to show payroll fraud was committed, and that circumstantial evidence did not hint to investigators any relationship existing between Cantrell and Vappie outside of work.

No policies governing actions of the executive protection team existed prior to Fox 8′s investigation.

Cantrell lashed out again Tuesday, unhappy that the consent decree monitors and judge continue to look into the Vappie matter.

“It’s unfortunate that political trickery, I would say, has entered into practices by the monitor,” Cantrell said at an unrelated press briefing.

Cantrell repeated previous statements that the federal monitors should “stay in their lanes.” She also pointed out the testimony of PIB Capt. Kendrick Allen, who last week said he was asked by the monitoring team to investigate and sustain a payroll fraud allegation against Vappie.

“One of our officers was asked to move forward, based on information that was not fact,” Cantrell said. “That is unethical. When you investigate, it has to be looking for facts, not allegations.”

Morgan asked Jones about Vappie’s time spent on the board of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and whether his appointment and subsequent attendance at some meetings constituted payroll fraud, regardless of whether he was paid by HANO.

Jones responded that Vappie told investigators he thought he could perform the duty on the HANO board because Cantrell told him he could.

Testimony will resume Wednesday at 9 a.m.

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