Indictment implicating Mayor Cantrell raises alarms about whether homes are truly safe [Video]

NEW ORLEANS — A federal indictment last month charged the area’s leading building inspection firm, IECI & Associates, and its owner, Randy Farrell, with bribing New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and her top staff so Farrell and his firm could allegedly falsify hundreds of electrical permits and inspections.

Starting in 2018 and continuing until late last year, Farrell and IECI “submitted … at least hundreds of fraudulent permit applications for unlicensed electricians who paid Farrell bribes and corresponding fraudulent inspection reports,” the indictment alleges.

The indictment lays out several examples, including one renovation project in 2018, where “the general contractor hired an unlicensed electrician who used Farrell to obtain a fraudulent permit.” The indictment goes on to allege that the homeowner saw “electrical connections that were unsafe and did not meet electrical code” and confronted Farrell about …