New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell
and Former NOPD Officer Jeffrey Vappie
Indicted for Fraud and Obstruction of Justice\
August 15, 2025

NEW ORLEANS –

Acting U.S. Attorney Michael M. Simpson announced
that LATOYA CANTRELL (“CANTRELL”), age 53, and
JEFFREY PAUL VAPPIE, II (“VAPPIE”), age 52, both residents of New Orleans,
were charged in a superseding indictment today on federal charges concerning 

wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

CANTRELL and VAPPIE were both charged in a conspiracy to commit
wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371,
as well as a conspiracy to obstruct justice, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 1512(k). VAPPIE is also charged with
twelve counts of wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code,
Section 1343, and CANTRELL is charged in six of those wire fraud
counts. VAPPIE is charged with making a false statement to the FBI,
in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001. CANTRELL
is charged in one count of obstruction of justice, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 1512©(1), and two counts of making
a false declaration before a grand jury, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 1623.

According to the allegations contained in the superseding indictment,
while CANTRELL was Mayor of New Orleans and VAPPIE was a
New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officer and member of her
executive protection team, CANTRELL and VAPPIE developed a
personal, intimate relationship as early as October of 2021. From
that time until VAPPIE's retirement in June 2024, they embarked
on a scheme to defraud the City of New Orleans and NOPD by
exploiting VAPPIE's job and CANTRELL authority as Mayor to have
the City and NOPD pay VAPPIE's salary and expenses during times
VAPPIE claimed to be on duty but when he was actually engaged
in personal activities, often with CANTRELL. The allegations contained
in the superseding indictment describe the many steps that CANTRELL
and VAPPIE took to hide their scheme and perpetuate their continued
fraud, including using a secure messaging platform, WhatsApp, to
exchange over 15,000 messages, pictures, and audio clips in an
eight-month period; intimidating subordinates; harassing a citizen;
lying to colleagues and associates; deleting evidence; making
false statements to FBI agents; giving the grand jury an affidavit
signed under oath and penalty of perjury that contained numerous
false statements; and, ultimately, committing perjury before a
federal grand jury, all for the purpose of distracting and impeding
inquiries and investigations, including a federal grand jury investigation.

The superseding indictment alleges that CANTRELL and VAPPIE
perpetuated their scheme both in New Orleans and during out-of-state
trips. In both instances, VAPPIE's activities while claiming to be on
duty were conspicuously different than any other member of the
Executive Protection Unit. While in New Orleans, they treated a
city-owned apartment in the Pontalba as their personal, shared
residence and coordinated to spend time together there, engaging
in personal activities, while VAPPIE claimed to be on duty for EPU
and was paid to be doing his job. CANTRELL occasionally canceled
scheduled work events to facilitate personal and intimate interactions
with VAPPIE in the Pontalba apartment.

The superseding indictment also alleges that CANTRELL and VAPPIE
arranged for VAPPIE to accompany CANTRELL on at least 14 domestic
and international trips to maximize their time together and engage in
personal activities. In their private text messages, CANTRELL characterized
trips with VAPPIE as “times when we are truly alone” and what
“spoils me the most.” These trips included trips to San Francisco, which
VAPPIE and CANTRELL decided to extend an extra day so they could
visit a series of Napa Valley wineries. While VAPPIE was wine tasting,
on April 9, 2022, he claimed to work, and was paid for working, a 15-hour day.

In August 2022, CANTRELL said she would “make it happen” to have
VAPPIE accompany her on a 3-day trip to Washington, D.C., a trip that
they both agreed that they “needed.” Shortly after they retuned,
VAPPIE described the trip to CANTRELL as “another leg on our journey”
as he declared his love for her and their physical relationship. In total,
the City of New Orleans paid over $70,000 for VAPPIE's travel on these trips.

When asked about her reason for bringing members of the
Executive Protection Unit with her on out-of-state trips, a practice
CANTRELL began about five months after VAPPIE joined EPU,
she justified it as a “pivot” due to COVID and a matter of “safety.”
At the same time, however, she continued to take out-of-state trips
without protection. In fact, on the same day she gave one such statement,
she canceled a work trip to Miami, and traveled alone—by plane,
then bus, and then ferry—to the island of Martha’s Vineyard in
Massachusetts to spend time with VAPPIE while he attended a
conference paid for by the City of New Orleans related to his position
on the HANO Board of Commissioners—a position to which CANTRELL
appointed him a few months earlier. On other occasions, when VAPPIE
was unavailable to accompany CANTRELL on a trip, CANTRELL decided
not to take another member of Executive Protection.

The superseding indictment alleges that both VAPPIE and CANTRELL
were aware their conduct broke criminal laws. For instance,
in April 2022, an associate told CANTRELL explicitly in multiple text
messages that spending public funds and using public resources for
her personal relationship was a “felony.” When CANTRELL and VAPPIE
learned that the news media was investigating their time together in
the Pontalba, they agreed to “be straight and together.” Days after the
first news stories broke, in November 2022, VAPPIE conducted numerous
online searches for New Orleans-area attorneys who specialize in the
practice of criminal law, and he researched WhatsApp’s security features.
But the defendants’ wire fraud scheme nevertheless continued until VAPPIE's
retirement in June 2024.

As alleged in the superseding indictment, in July 2023, the grand jury
issued subpoenas to both VAPPIE and CANTRELL compelling the
production of records. The FBI also interviewed VAPPIE. During the
interview, VAPPIE lied about the nature and circumstances of his
relationship. In response to the subpoena, CANTRELL produced a
selection of responsive records, but none of the over 15,000 WhatsApp
messages she exchanged with VAPPIE. CANTRELL also created an
affidavit, sworn under oath, that she had activated a feature that
automatically deleted messages in 2021. CANTRELL submitted a
screen shot of her iPhone, showing that WhatsApp messages were
set to delete in 24 hours. In fact, CANTRELL did not turn on that
feature until December 26, 2022, roughly one month after the
news media began speculating on her conduct, VAPPIE conducted
online searches concerning WhatsApp and its security level,
and by which time several people had warned VAPPIE and CANTRELL
that their conduct was illegal. This “disappearing messages” feature,
moreover, only applied to new messages. During roughly this same
period, CANTRELL also manually deleted thousands of her prior
WhatsApp messages with VAPPIE. As alleged, even at the time
CANTRELL responded to the grand jury subpoena, she still possessed
more than 50 pictures, including screen shots of correspondence with
VAPPIE, that were responsive to the subpoena, but which she
nevertheless concealed from the grand jury.

The superseding indictment further alleges that VAPPIE and CANTRELL
continued their pattern of obstruction through the rest of 2023 and 2024.
This included improperly pressuring the Interim Superintendent of NOPD
to overrule findings of an internal investigation into VAPPIE's conduct.
When the Interim Superintendent did not heed that directive, CANTRELL
ordered the Interim Superintendent to nevertheless reassign VAPPIE
back to her protection detail. Months later, in a meeting VAPPIE attended,
CANTRELL informed the Interim Superintendent that the
Interim Superintendent would be replaced. Similarly, when a
private citizen took pictures of CANTRELL and VAPPIE together in
public, dining and consuming alcohol al fresco while VAPPIE reported
to be on duty, CANTRELL obtained non-public information about the
citizen, filed a police report, and sought a restraining order against the citizen.

Acting U.S. Attorney Simpson reiterated that an indictment is
merely a charge and that the guilt of the defendants must be
proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

If they are convicted of the conspiracy to commit wire fraud,
CANTRELL and VAPPIE each faces up to five years in prison and
up to three years of supervised release. For each count of wire fraud,
CANTRELL and VAPPIE each faces up to twenty years in prison and
up to three years of supervised release. For the conspiracy to
obstruct justice, CANTRELL and VAPPIE each faces up to twenty years
in prison and up to three years of supervised release. For the false
statement to the FBI, VAPPIE faces up to five years in prison and
up to three years of supervised release. For each obstruction of
justice count, CANTRELL faces up to twenty years in prison and
up to three years of supervised release. For each count of making
false statements to a grand jury, CANTRELL faces up to five years
in prison and up to three years of supervised release. For each count,
both defendants face a fine of up to $250,000 and a $100 mandatory
special assessment fee.

Acting U.S. Attorney Simpson praised the work of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation in investigating this matter and expressed appreciation
for the support provided by the Department of Justice’s Computer Crimes
and Intellectual Properties Section Cybercrime Lab, the City of
New Orleans Office of Inspector General, and the Metropolitan Crime Commission.
Assistant United States Attorneys Jordan Ginsberg, Chief of the
Public Integrity Unit, and Nicholas D. Moses, of the Financial Crimes Unit
and Health Care Fraud Coordinator, are in charge of the prosecution.

Federal grand jury indicts former FBI director
for false statements and obstruction in congressional testimony

Thursday, September 25, 2025

ALEXANDRIA, Va. –

Lindsey Halligan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia,
announced today that a federal grand jury returned an indictment
charging former FBI Director James Comey with making a false
statement and obstruction relating to his oral testimony before
the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020.

“The charges as alleged in this case represent a breach of the
public trust at an extraordinary level,” said U.S. Attorney Halligan.
“The balance of power is a bedrock principal of our democracy,
and it relies upon accountability and a forthright presentation of
facts from executive leadership to congressional oversight. Any
intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance is a
violation of professional responsibility and, most importantly, the law.”

If convicted, Comey faces up to five years in prison. Actual
sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the
maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine
any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
and other statutory factors.






A copy of this press release is located on the
website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
Eastern District of Virginia. Related court
documents and information are located on
the website of the District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER
by searching for Case No. 1:25-cr-272.



An indictment is merely an accusation.
The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Navy Officer Says Underwater UFOs Are Legitimate Threats.
The Evidence Is Hard to Ignore.

Some of the most credible encounters with nonhuman aircraft have happened
over the world’s oceans. Now, the witnesses want answers.

By Stav Dimitropoulos
Published: Aug 25, 2025 9:30 AM EDT








In mid-2014, during training flights off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, F/A-18 pilot and
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves began to notice something strange. The radar returns looked
off—phantom blips moving with unfathomable speed and precision. At first he dismissed it as a
glitch. But then the anomalies returned, recorded by the fighter jets’ sophisticated sensors. They
would hover in place—and then dart away at supersonic speeds. They were recorded from the
ocean’s surface to 40,000 feet.

“Sometimes stationary—0.0 Mach. Other times 250 to 350 knots . . ..
Sometimes even supersonic—1.1 to 1.2 Mach. All altitudes.
And always over the ocean,” Graves says.

After appearing only as glitches on the jets’ radar, the objects on one occasion finally came into
view. Graves reported seeing a dark gray or black cube inside a clear sphere, between five and
15 feet in diameter, coming within 50 feet of their jets. “That was the turning point,” Graves says.
“We started treating it as a safety issue.”

Over the next year, Graves’s squadron recorded sightings of unidentified objects almost daily.
Sometimes the objects flew in loose formations. Other times they traveled alone. They had no
exhaust, no visible propulsion, no wings. Sometimes the object would rotate in place; others
vanished when approached. As it turned out, pilots stationed off the West Coast—on missions
aboard the USS Nimitz, the USS Princeton, and other carriers—had been experiencing similar
things for years.

Some of these craft—now classified as UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena)—appeared to
be capable of transmedium travel, meaning they are able to move from air to sea without slowing,
splashing, or emitting heat. They challenged every assumption held by aerospace engineers and
radar operators.

Graves doesn’t claim to know what the objects were. But one thing was clear.
“This wasn’t business as usual,” he says. “There was a serious issue at play. It wasn’t just one
rogue object. It wasn’t just us on the East Coast. It wasn’t just my squadron. It was a pattern.
This was global.”

Since at least the 1950s, military sources have reported strange objects plunging into the
ocean—what they call USOs (unidentified submerged objects). These phenomena exhibit
characteristics that conflict with our understanding of physics and maritime navigation. As
radar and similar technologies have advanced, so have the number of sightings.




Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace;
David Grusch, former representative of the National Reconnaissance
Office to the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force
(now the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office);
and retired Navy Commander David Fravor appear at a
House Oversight Committee hearing on UAPs in 2023.




Today Graves is one of the most vocal advocates for UAP transparency. Now retired from
the military, he’s the founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace, the largest UAP-focused
pilot safety initiative in the world, and works with former Pentagon and naval officials to
push for greater transparency. He doesn’t claim that these craft are alien, but he’s certain
that they aren’t using known human tech. “Where that leaves us opens up options—extraterrestrial
visitors, time travelers, breakaway civilizations . . . things that challenge the status quo and
aren’t easily accepted at face value,” he says.

Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, PhD, an oceanographer, was one of the first to view footage from
the UAP incidents in 2015 involving fighter jets attached to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which
at the time was conducting training exercises off the coast of Florida. Two videos captured by
Navy fighter jets that were made public in 2020 show strange craft flying at incredible speeds
with no visible means of propulsion, sometimes rotating in midair. “I knew then that what I saw
was not our technology. We don’t test experimental aircraft in training ranges—it’s too dangerous—
and I had access to everything classified. No nation has craft that can move like that,” he says.

Gallaudet, now retired from the Navy and currently the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, is pushing
for the U.S. government to treat these phenomena as a “national research priority.” Despite some
public disclosures, many records remain classified, buried within defense contractor vaults or
shielded by national security exemptions. If even part of what’s been reported is true, then the
encounters off Virginia, California, and elsewhere could be the opening chapter in a much deeper
mystery—one that spans oceans, navies, and continents.

This spring, Graves and Gallaudet briefed officials in Washington, D.C., on unidentified submerged
objects. “We’re at a unique moment in history,” Graves says. “People have access to tools that can
reveal things. The momentum is building.”

That momentum has already begun reshaping policy. In 2023, Congress passed the
UAP Disclosure Act, legislation requiring federal agencies to collect, catalog, and disclose records
related to recovered nonhuman craft and biologics. For the first time, U.S. law openly acknowledged
the potential existence of off-world or nonhuman intelligence, and even hinted at craft retrieval and
reverse engineering programs.

Those newly released records contain a trove of details on previously classified encounters with
multiple transmedium UAPs. None definitively prove that otherworldly beings are hiding in or above
our oceans, but they do raise questions that neither our military nor scientific experts can explain.

“The possibility that they exist underwater is very real,” Gallaudet says. “They could come from
another galaxy, if they’ve conquered the engineering challenge of that,” he says. “Or why not—maybe
they lived here for a long time, before we even evolved, and sought safety from the Earth’s atmospheric
and geologic cataclysms by creating a habitat or place to live beneath the seafloor. . .. That’s one hypothesis.”

The following four incidents have provided investigators with the most compelling—and perplexing—evidence
so far of transmedium encounters with what experts like Gallaudet believe could be nonhuman in origin.





In 2004, F/A-18 Hornet pilots assigned to the USS Nimitz captured images
of a UAP using their jet’s Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared
(ATFLIR) system.




USS Nimitz, 2004

In November 2004, several U.S. Navy pilots assigned to the USS Nimitz encountered a Tic Tac–shaped
UAP darting and dashing over the Pacific. According to reports that followed, the object lacked visible
control surfaces and heat signatures that would be typical of jet aircraft or rockets. It never made a
sonic boom, although it appeared to be traveling faster than the speed of sound.

The incident began when the USS Princeton, a guided-missile cruiser escorting the Nimitz off the coast
of San Diego, picked up strange radar contacts. The objects appeared at 80,000 feet, and then dropped
to sea level in less than a second. F/A-18 Commander David Fravor and Lieutenant Commander Jim Slaight
scrambled to intercept the object. Each man claims to have seen a smooth, white oblong object around
30 to 40 feet long, with no wings, no windows, no markings. It hung in the air just over the sea.

As Fravor circled downward, the object suddenly shot away, vanishing in seconds. “It just disappeared.
Like a bullet out of a gun,” Fravor told Fox News.

The strike group dispatched a second flight. This time the object was captured on an infrared camera showing
a white speck flying against the wind, rotating and maneuvering in ways no known aircraft can.




An infrared sensor onboard a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft captured
footage of a UAP over Rafael Hernández Airport near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.





Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, 2013


One of the most hotly debated encounters of an unidentified submerged
object came in April 2013, when an infrared surveillance camera operated by U.S. Customs and
Border Protection captured something extraordinary over Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. A small spherical
object flew inland from the ocean, crossed the airport, and then returned to sea—where it maneuvered
in ways that appeared to defy physics.

The three-minute video, published by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, has become a key piece
of evidence suggesting the possibility of transmedium travel. It shows the object entering the water
without slowing down—no splash, no wake, no disruption. Seconds later it resurfaces, splits in two,
and then submerges again. Any object passing between two mediums should generate drag or
turbulence or, at the very least, a splash, according to the laws of hydrodynamics. But this one
behaved as if those laws didn’t apply.

“It’s not that they break the laws,” Gallaudet says. “It’s that they demonstrate engineering capabilities
we haven’t yet developed. We can’t build anything that can do that today.”

“I’ve spoken with the pilots who saw it,” he adds. “The near-instantaneous acceleration of that craft is
something we just can’t engineer.”





A pilot of a U.S. Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter, like the one shown above,
reportedly encounted a UAP while flying off the coast of Puerto Rico.




Caribbean Sea, Unspecified date

In the 1990s, a Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion pilot was flying off the coast of Puerto Rico when he saw something
he couldn’t explain. His crew, on a routine mission to retrieve a BQM target drone that had previously been
dropped into the ocean, had sent a diver into the water to connect the drone to the helicopter’s hoist system.
But just before the helo was about to lift the 20-foot-long drone out of the sea, something pulled it violently
downward. The pilot, whose name has not been disclosed, would later report that the object was a large,
dark mass unlike any submarine or marine animal he’d ever seen.

After F/A-18 Commander David Fravor went public with the previous incident he witnessed flying off the
USS Nimitz, he says the Sea Stallion pilot contacted him to relay the story. Fravor then shared details on
Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2019.

“The helo drops a swimmer in the water, he hooks the whole thing up, and they fly back,” Fravor said.
“The first time they were out and they were going to pick up a BQM, he’s sitting in the front—in the CH-53
you can see down by your feet—and as he’s looking down, they’re 50 feet above the water, he sees this
kind of dark mass coming up from the depths.”

As the pilot picked up the BQM, he was apparently at a loss for words. “He’s looking at this thing going,
‘What the hell is that?’ And then it just goes back down underwater. Once they pull the kid and the BQM
out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.”




A video frame from 2019 footage taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship off San Diego
shows an unidentified spherical object flying in the air before disappearing into the ocean.




USS Omaha, 2019

It began as a blip. In July 2019, an infrared camera aboard the USS Omaha captured something that
defied explanation: a spherical object moving swiftly over the Pacific before dropping into the ocean—again,
no splash, no wake, no debris. The footage, later verified by Pentagon officials, stunned observers. The
object didn’t resemble any known drone, missile, or aircraft. And its disappearance beneath the waves
raised new questions about transmedium tech.

In the incident, the crew of the Omaha (which was also sailing off the San Diego coast) recorded a
spherical UAP hovering just over the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The ship’s sensor that caught the
object was the sophisticated AN/KAX-2—a stabilized sensor turret built for maritime environments that
includes a digital video camera, night vision camera, and laser rangefinder.

The video shows a recording of the AN/KAX-2 screen and appears to have been taken with a night vision
camera. The object seemingly moves, tracked by the sensor operator, and then hovers just above the
ocean’s surface. Then the object disappears.




A video frame from 2019 footage taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship off San Diego shows
an unidentified spherical object flying in the air before disappearing into the ocean.



A pilot of a U.S. Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter, like the one shown above,
reportedly encounted a UAP while flying off the coast of Puerto Rico.




An infrared sensor onboard a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft captured
footage of a UAP over Rafael Hernández Airport near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.












“It looked nothing like any known aircraft,” Gallaudet says. “After I testified before Congress last year,
a sailor who had been on the bridge of the Omaha contacted me. He said the object was just one of
many—and that he’d witnessed a similar event aboard the USS Jackson in 2023.”

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