New Orleans’ mayor accused her of stalking. Now she’s filed a $1 million defamation suit

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans woman once accused of stalking by Mayor LaToya Cantrell turned the tables Friday with a $1 million-plus federal lawsuit accusing Cantrell, her chief of staff and eight members of the city police department of civil rights violations and defamation.

Anne W. Breaud’s lawsuit says Cantrell falsely accused Breaud of following and harassing her. It also claims Cantrell’s chief of staff and members of the police department improperly accessed state and federal information on Breaud.

Cantrell earlier this year filed a state court lawsuit accusing Breaud of stalking. But after a protective order against Breaud was initially issued, the lawsuit was thrown out and Cantrell was ordered to pay Breaud’s legal costs.

Defendants in the lawsuit filed Friday include Cantrell, her chief of staff, the city and its police department as well as three police officers identified by name and five officers who are not identified by name in the lawsuit. The police department declined to comment on pending litigation Friday. The city also declined comment in a release from Cantrell’s press secretary, saying its position would be made public in court filings answering the lawsuit.

Sparking all the litigation were two photographs Breaud snapped from the balcony of her French Quarter apartment in April, showing Cantrell and a police bodyguard, since retired, dining and drinking on the balcony of a restaurant across a narrow street.

Breaud said she sent the images to a police watchdog group, the Metropolitan Crime Commission. The pictures fueled controversy over Cantrell’s personal relationship with the bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie.

Vappie, who is not a defendant in the lawsuit, was criminally charged in federal court last week with wire fraud involving allegedly filing false payroll documents and lying to FBI agents about his relationship with the mayor. Vappie’s attorneys have declared him innocent. His first court appearance is set for Aug. 7.

Cantrell, according to the lawsuit, accused Breaud of not only turning her pictures over to local media, but also of following Cantrell and taking and distributing another photo, all of which Breaud denies.

“While Cantrell falsely painted herself as the victim of a pattern of stalking, harassment and intimidation by Breaud, it is Cantrell who has engaged in a pattern of harassment and character assassination against Breaud, a person wrongly accused by Cantrell of stalking solely because Breaud captured a photograph of Cantrell and Vappie in a compromising position,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit accuses the police defendants of illegally obtaining information about her on state and national databases, and contends that Cantrell and her chief of staff made it public.

The lawsuit seeks a court finding that Cantrell and the other defendants violated Breaud’s civil rights and her Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, violated federal privacy and computer fraud laws, and violated Fourth Amendment defamation. It also seeks $500,000 in actual damages, including emotional stress, litigation costs and time lost defending against Cantrell’s allegations, plus $500,000 in punitive damages and other damages in unspecified amounts for alleged violations of state law.