The 18-count indictment handed up Friday against Mayor LaToya Cantrell and her police officer bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, paints a sordid picture of the pair jetting off on city time while scheming to hide their affair from the public, a federal grand jury and the news media.

Over 44 pages, Cantrell is accused of a series of illegal actions , including withholding or deleting records and lying to the feds to conceal a romance with Vappie, now divorced and retired from the New Orleans Police Department.

Their entanglement came at taxpayer expense, the feds allege, on high-flying mayoral trips and at a city-owned apartment that Cantrell controlled in the Upper Pontalba building — and later wanted swept for bugs.

In federal legal circles, though, the indictment drew mixed reviews.

So

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