Boston anti-violence activist charged with fraud, conspiracy in federal indictment

Local activist Monica Cannon-Grant and her husband, Clark Grant, founders 
of an anti-violence nonprofit Violence in Boston, were indicted Tuesday by 
a federal grand jury and charged with wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy 
and making false statements to a mortgage lending business.

Prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins’ office allege in the 
indictment that Cannon-Grant, 41, the founder and CEO of Violence in 
Boston, and Grant, 38, a founding director, intentionally conspired to use 
the nonprofit “as a vehicle to solicit and receive charitable 
contributions from institutional and individual donors” that they then 
used for “a wide range of personal expenses and to enrich themselves while 
concealing such expenditures from VIB directors, officers and others.”

The 18-count indictment alleges that between 2017 and 2021, Cannon-Grant 
applied for numerous public and private grants and received donations to 
her nonprofit, but used that money for personal expenses, including hotel 
reservations, groceries, gas, car rentals, auto repairs, Uber rides, nail 
salons, restaurants, food deliveries and personal travel.

"We are extremely disappointed the government rushed to judgment here," 
Cannon-Grant's attorney Robert Goldstein said in a statement Tuesday. "VIB 
and Monica have been fully cooperating and their production of records 
remains ongoing. Drawing conclusions from an incomplete factual record 
does not represent the fair and fully informed process a citizen deserves 
from its government, especially someone like Monica who has worked 
tirelessly on behalf of her community. We remain fully confident Monica 
will be vindicated when a complete factual record emerges.”

Cannon-Grant was arrested Tuesday morning and later released on her own 
recognizance following a preliminary hearing before Magistrate Judge 
Judith G. Dein. Federal prosecutors did not ask she be detained until her 
trial. Pre-trial conditions prohibit her from engaging in any employment 
or volunteer or unpaid positions that allow her access to monetary funds, 
disbursements of monetary funds, salary payments or any other financial 
responsibilities.

Adam Deitch, a federal prosecutor, expressed concern about Cannon-Grant 
having access to the nonprofit's funds, "given the pervasiveness and 
flagrancy of the defendants fraud here and how it relates to the finances 
of this nonprofit organization." Deitch and attorney Ben Connolly, who 
represented Cannon-Grant, plan to negotiate her role as the CEO of 
Violence in Boston.

"The sticking point there is that Ms. [Cannon-]Grant continues to run 
Violence in Boston," Connolly said during the hearing. "They pay monthly 
rent in Hyde Park. They run food pantries out of Hyde Park on Wednesdays 
and Fridays that serve 50 to 70 individuals. So we would ask that the 
court not impose that condition."

While allegedly providing herself with a $170,092 income from the 
organization's coffers in 2021, prosecutors allege that Cannon-Grant 
“falsely represented VIB as a nonprofit that did not pay salaries or other 
compensation” to either Cannon-Grant or Grant.

The couple was also charged with fraudulently collecting federal pandemic 
unemployment benefits, despite being employed full-time. Grant collected 
$67,950 in COVID-19 unemployment benefits from May 2020 to September 2021, 
according to prosecutors. Cannon-Grant's pre-trial conditions prohibit her 
from applying for unemployment benefits, loans or grants, unless approved 
by the court.

Charges also include allegedly defrauding a mortgage company when applying 
for a home loan last year. The couple is accused of submitting “false 
information and fraudulent documentation that represented VIB assets as 
personal assets and concealed the fraudulent nature of Grant’s" pandemic 
unemployment assistance income.

Cannon-Grant could face prison sentence of up to 20 years for each of the 
13 counts of wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, five 
years for conspiracy and up to 30 years for the charge of making false 
statements to a mortgage lending business.

Though Cannon-Grant did not immediately respond to a request for comment 
from GBH News, she pushed back on social media after allegations of 
mortgage fraud surfaced in a 2021 criminal complaint against her husband. 
Earlier this month, Cannon-Grant claimed that her name does not appear on 
the loan documents and that he told the mortgage lender to remove the 
nonprofit’s bank account from the application.

“The bank information was pulled and immediately told it was unable to be 
used because it didn’t belong to [Grant],” she wrote on Twitter earlier 
this month. “This is only the tip of the iceberg. I’m not on the loan at 
all.”

Cannon-Grant wrote in the same thread that she was “fully cooperating” 
with a federal investigation of the nonprofit’s funds, dismissing the 
allegations as “we can’t explain her success so she has to be stealing.”

“A Black woman raised too much money for her non-profit and needed help 
organizing it all,” she wrote.

Cannon-Grant founded Violence in Boston in 2017 with the goals of reducing 
violence and raising social awareness and racial equity in Boston. After 
the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, Cannon-Grant rose to prominence as 
an activist and local organizer, gathering tens of thousands of people at 
a Black Lives Matter march through Franklin Park that June.

Cannon-Grant was interviewed by USA Today as one of their women of the 
year in 2022. Last year, the nonprofit founder was named one of the most 
powerful people in Boston by Boston magazine and a Bostonian of the Year 
in 2020 by The Boston Globe Magazine. Her efforts to feed 1,700 people 
daily throughout the pandemic via her Food for Soul initiative was 
highlighted in Boston.com in 2020.


As media accolades raised Cannon-Grant into prominence, controversy 
followed: years of online harassment, doxxing and death threats that 
Cannon-Grant said led her to move homes and only travel in groups of 
people she trusted.

“Someone asked me, why is this happening,” Cannon-Grant wrote earlier this 
month in a tweet with a screenshot of an email containing a racial 
epithet. “The answer is, I showed up [as] a Black woman without [a] 
college degree cursing and being my authentic self while taking care of my 
community and passing laws.”

In 2020, Cannon-Grant was criticized for cursing in a video that mocked 
the interracial relationship of Rayla Campbell, a Republican congressional 
candidate who is Black and had a white partner.

She has not shied away from controversy on social media or in her 
activism: last year Cannon-Grant demanded the resignation of Middlesex 
District Attorney Marian Ryan for her handling of the case of Mikayla 
Miller, a young Black teen from Hopkinton whose death raised questions 
from family members. Cannon-Grant provided Violence in Boston resources to 
fund an independent autopsy for Miller, the results of which have never 
been publicly released.

Though Cannon-Grant helped connect Miller’s mother with legal help from 
nationally recognized trial attorney Ben Crump, known for representing 
Floyd's family in Minnesota, she maintained at the time that a GoFundMe 
campaign set up to cover associated costs of the investigation and legal 
process were directly connected to Miller’s mother, Calvina Strothers, and 
not processed through Violence in Boston accounts.

“When you see the news ‘Feds are investigating VIB,’ NO S***!” Cannon-
Grant wrote in a tweet earlier this month, along with a screenshot of 
someone asking for her address in a Facebook message, along with a photo 
of one of her children. “All the white supremacy and anti-Blackness I’ve 
endured doesn’t surprise me. We’ve known and have been fully cooperating 
making sure they have everything they need so this can be over and my 
family can have peace.”

Cannon-Grant's arraignment on the charges will be scheduled for next week.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Read the full indictment below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bk79VO-Fkhp2iOwK2PkT1s4yfwlnevf-/view

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2022/03/15/boston-anti-violence-
activist-charged-with-fraud-conspiracy-in-federal-indictment