NEW ORLEANS — A woman from New Orleans accused of stalking Mayor LaToya Cantrell turned the tables on Friday with a more than $1 million federal lawsuit accusing Cantrell, her chief of staff and eight city police officers of civil rights violations and defamation.
Anne W. Breaud’s lawsuit says Cantrell falsely accused Breaud of following and harassing her. It also alleges that Cantrell’s chief of staff and members of the police department improperly accessed state and federal information about Breaud.
Cantrell filed a lawsuit in state court earlier this year accusing Breaud of stalking. But after an initial protective order was issued against Breaud, the lawsuit was dismissed and Cantrell was ordered to pay Breaud’s legal fees.
The defendants in the lawsuit filed Friday include Cantrell, her chief of staff, the city and its police department, as well as three named police officers and five unnamed officers in the lawsuit. The police department declined to comment on the pending litigation Friday. The city also declined to comment in a press release from Cantrell’s spokesman, saying its position would be made public in court documents responding to the lawsuit.
The lawsuits were sparked by two photos Breaud took in April from the balcony of her French Quarter apartment. They show Cantrell and a now-retired police bodyguard eating and drinking on the balcony of a restaurant across a narrow street.
Breaud said she sent the footage to a police watchdog group, the Metropolitan Crime Commission. The footage sparked controversy over Cantrell’s personal relationship with the bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie.
Vappie, who is not a defendant in the lawsuit, was prosecuted last week in federal court on charges of wire fraud in which he allegedly submitted false paychecks and lied to FBI agents about his relationship with the mayor. Vappie’s attorneys have pleaded not guilty. His first court appearance is scheduled for August 7.
Cantrell accuses Breaud not only of turning over her photos to local media, but also of following Cantrell and taking and distributing another photo. Breaud denies all of this.
“While Cantrell falsely portrayed himself as the victim of a pattern of stalking, intimidation and harassment by Breaud, it is Cantrell who engaged in a pattern of intimidation and character assassination against Breaud, an individual who was falsely accused by Cantrell of stalking solely because Breaud took a photograph of Cantrell and Vappie in a compromising position,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit accuses the police officers of illegally obtaining information about her from state and national databases and alleges that Cantrell and her chief of staff made the information public.
The lawsuit seeks a court ruling that Cantrell and the other defendants violated Breaud’s civil rights and her Fourth Amendment protections 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 distress, litigation costs and time lost defending Cantrell’s allegations, plus $500,000 in punitive damages and other damages in unspecified amounts for alleged violations of state law.