Violence In Boston Fraud Began With $10K Gift To Feed Kids: Feds

BOSTON, MA — The money was supposed to go to hungry Boston Public Schools students.

In autumn 2017, Monica Cannon-Grant applied for a $10,400 grant from a Massachusetts-based department store chain. The grant would be used to buy meals for kids through Cannon-Grant's social justice nonprofit, Violence In Boston.

At the time, the IRS had not yet certified Violence In Boston as a nonprofit. So the department store sent the grant to a church in Virginia, which then transferred the money to Cannon-Grant.

Without telling anyone else at Violence In Boston, Cannon-Grant deducted over $3,000 from the grant to buy money orders that she used to pay rent owed on her Boston apartment, according to court documents.

That was the beginning of a long-running fraud perpetuated by Cannon-Grant and her husband, Clark Grant, over the past five years, federal prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed this week. Cannon-Grant was arrested Tuesday on charges including mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. She has not yet entered a plea, and is set to appear in court for an arraignment next week.

“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," Cannon-Grant attorney Robert Goldstein told reporters on Wednesday.

Cannon-Grant's arrest marks a sharp turn for a Boston activist who was named one of the region's most powerful people one year ago — and before that, the "best social justice activist" in 2020 by Boston Magazine, and the 2020 Bostonian of the Year by the Boston Globe Magazine.

Court filings by federal prosecutors tell another story. While Cannon-Grant led marches over the deaths of George Floyd and Mikayla Miller and opened a 4,000 square-foot community service center in Hyde Park, she and her husband were skimming donations to use for personal expenses, according to charging documents.

Here's a look at what prosecutors found during an investigation into the nonprofit, according to court documents:

Bank Transactions

Much of the indictment covers deposits made to either Clark-Grant or her husband's personal checking accounts linked to charitable contributions to Violence In Boston.

Between 2018 and 2019, Violence In Boston collected about $172,000 in donations, according to court records. Prosecutors tallied about $127,000 in cash withdrawals and debits from the Violence In Boston bank account and PayPal account over those two years. Those funds paid for personal phone bills, Uber rides and an apparent shopping trip at the Wrentham outlet mall.

When donations to Violence In Boston rose in spring 2020, the couple began spending more, according to court documents. In April 2020, the nonprofit collected about $50,000 in contributions, and prosecutors tracked an outflow of cash, including: $16,000 in ATM withdrawals in the month of April; $1,400 spent on the stock trading apps E*Trade and Robinhood; and paying down about $1,700 in EZ Pass tolls past due since 2017.

Pandemic Unemployment

In October, Clark Grant was arrested after federal prosecutors accused him of accepting special pandemic unemployment insurance benefits while still collecting income. The indictment released this week says Cannon-Grant also wrongly accepted unemployment benefits.

According to court documents, Cannon-Grant claimed in May 2020 that she had lost her job in March 2020 due to the pandemic. In July, Cannon-Grant began working as a consultant for a Boston media company to provide diversity, equity and inclusion training. She received a payment of $12,500 on July 21, but on July 27 wrote in an unemployment claim that she had not earned any income over the previous week, court documents say.

Cannon-Grant continued to claim that she earned no income while collecting the unemployment benefits, court documents say, and in October 2020 began drawing a weekly paycheck from Violence In Boston of about $2,800.

Documents show that the state asked Cannon-Grant in March 2021 to prove that she hadn't earned any income while collecting benefits. That prompted a text exchange with her husband.

"Unemployment caught my ass! Asked me to provide documents by June unless I'll have to pay it all back," she wrote.

"Have [redacted] do a letter saying the building was closed," Clark Grant replied, the documents say.

Mortgage Fraud

In May 2021, the couple tried to buy a $410,000 home called the "Bristol residence" in court documents. On a mortgage application, Clark Grant listed the Violence In Boston bank account as his own, records show. His own bank account at the time had just under $800 in it, while the nonprofit account had about $461,000, according to court records.

At the same time, Cannon-Grant issued herself a $21,000 bonus from Violence In Boston, according to court documents. She then gifted the money to her husband to put toward the home purchase.

As the couple prepared to close on the home, they needed an additional $3,000 to pay closing costs. Cannon-Grant asked an associate for the money, assuring the person she would pay them back. But the couple certified to the lender that the $3,000 was a gift, not a loan, according to court documents.

In August 2021, Cannon-Grant wired $3,000 to pay back the person she borrowed the money from, according to court documents. Oftentimes, mortgage lenders turn down borrowers who take out loans for fees and down payments associated with a home purchase.

Tie To Rachael Rollins

Former Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins was confirmed in December as the new United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, the office that is prosecuting Cannon-Grant and her husband.

But a key piece of the case against Violence In Boston revolves around money Rollins' office gave to the nonprofit.

In May 2019, Rollins' office began giving out community reinvestment grants to social service organizations around Boston. Violence In Boston got $6,000 from Rollins. The money was supposed to pay for a trip to Philadelphia for an anti-violence conference and retreat for a group of men from Boston.

The trip never happened, the indictment says. Instead, Cannon-Grant used the money on groceries, a $145 nail salon trip, food from Shake Shack and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurants and a $1,200 stay at a Sonesta Suites hotel in Maryland.

Rollins has recused herself from the Violence In Boston case, Boston.com reported this week.