NOLA Radio: City Settles With Cabbie Wrongly Jailed

Jennifer Gaubert

NOLA quietly coughed up $40,000 last year to a cab driver who claimed he was jailed on bogus charges based on the word of a WGSO 990 AM brokered show host who had implored him to have sex with her in the front seat of his taxi — an encounter he videotaped on his cell phone.

The Advocate reports the city cut a check to Hervey Farrell last summer to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit over his August 2013 arrest on voyeurism and extortion counts, according to records obtained Monday.  The city attorney’s office had earlier refused to turn over the settlement terms, citing ongoing litigation that ended last week when a judge formally dismissed Farrell’s related claims against the radio show host and attorney, Jennifer Gaubert.

Gaubert, 35, had gotten into Farrell’s White Fleet cab early on April 6, 2012 after a night of drinking at Galatoire’s on Bourbon Street for a ride to her Lakeview home.

She proceeded to crawl over the seat and, as Farrell’s video showed, lift her skirt while urging the cabbie to engage in sexual intercourse. In the video, which captures only a portion of the encounter, Farrell repeatedly rebuffs Gaubert’s slurring advances before she exits the cab.

Farrell has maintained he was a victim of Gaubert’s drunken aggression. He quickly filed a civil claim against Gaubert, whose radio show on WGSO, “Law Out Loud,” ended shortly after the cab ride.

Nearly a year later, Gaubert sought help from police. She asserted Farrell was extorting her under threat of releasing the video.  Based solely on her statement, police secured an arrest warrant for the cabbie, his attorneys alleged.

Farrell sat in jail for more than 27 hours before making a $21,000 bond. He suffered depression and emotional distress from his arrest and the media coverage surrounding it, his lawsuit stated. Farrell claimed he was the victim of false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and kidnapping.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office refused the charges against Farrell a little more than a month after his arrest.

In 2015, Criminal District Judge Arthur Hunter convicted Gaubert of misdemeanor criminal mischief, a lesser charge from the felony count she faced for allegedly filing a false police report. The judge sentenced Gaubert to a suspended one-day jail term.