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Gone South

The Fall of Latoya Cantrell

Gone South

Audacy Podcasts

Society & Culture, True Crime

4.84.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

New Orleans is no stranger to political scandal, but the federal case against Mayor LaToya Cantrell isn’t a classic bribes-and-kickbacks story. It’s a story about a relationship, power, and the alleged misuse of public resources.


Times-Picayune columnist Stephanie Grace traces Cantrell’s rise from post-Katrina neighborhood leader to the first woman elected mayor, and what went wrong in her second term.


Prosecutors say Cantrell and NOPD officer Jeffrey Vappie, her security guard, used city funds and access to a city-owned apartment overlooking Jackson Square and official travel to spend time together, then tried to cover it up. Cantrell has denied wrongdoing.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

It is not hard to destroy a college.

0:03.6

Last season, the podcast Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults, and more.

0:10.9

And now, Campus Files is back for another season.

0:14.0

There's a guy screaming into his phone.

0:15.8

He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk just assassinated right in front of me.

0:19.0

Every week is a new episode and a new story.

0:22.0

It was so chaotic.

0:23.1

It's almost like a university on a siege.

0:25.5

Listen to and follow campus files.

0:27.5

Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

0:34.3

Like drive-through daiquery shops and streets that flood five minutes after it rains, political

0:40.2

corruption is a fact of life in Louisiana.

0:43.9

The Justice Department has consistently ranked the state, in New Orleans in particular, among

0:48.6

the nation's leaders in public corruption convictions.

0:52.7

Residents have come to expect a certain amount of graft and backroom

0:55.6

dealing from their lawmakers. As the old joke goes, in Louisiana, we don't tolerate corruption,

1:01.9

we demand it. The existence of political corruption may be bad for Louisiana taxpayers,

1:08.1

but it offers an endless supply of rich material for the local media.

1:12.6

And few understand this world better than Stephanie Grace.

1:16.5

Stephanie has been covering New Orleans City politics for close to three decades.

1:20.9

She writes a popular political column for the Times-Picayune and appears regularly on local TV and

1:26.4

radio stations. She even moderates and conducts

...

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