BOSTON (WHDH) - Two former directors of the local nonprofit Violence in Boston (VIB) and her husband were charged in a superseding indictment Thursday in connection with a scheme to defraud the City of Boston out of COVID-19 relief funds and rental assistance money, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Monica Cannon-Grant, 42, and Clark Grant, 39, both of Taunton, were charged by a federal grand jury in a 27-count superseding indictment, returned Thursday with three counts of wire fraud conspiracy, 17 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy, and one count of making false statements to a mortgage lending business.
The new wire fraud charges center on alleged schemes to obtain and utilize pandemic assistance funds from the Boston Resiliency Fund for purposes not disclosed to the city, including for their own personal benefit and to fraudulently obtain rental assistance payments from Boston’s Office of Housing Stability. Cannon-Grant was also charged with mail fraud, filing false tax returns, and failing to file tax returns.
Cannon-Grant was the founder and CEO of VIB, an anti-violence nonprofit formally established in 2017. Grant is a founding director of VIB and, beginning in July 2018 until recently, was a full-time employee for a commuter services company.
According to the superseding indictment, the defendants allegedly conspired to use VIB to defraud the Boston Resiliency Fund, a charitable fund established to provide aid to Boston residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After receiving approximately $53,977 in pandemic relief funds, the defendants allegedly withdrew approximately $30,000 in cash from the VIB bank account, some of which the defendants kept. After depositing the COVID-19 relief grant check, the defendants also allegedly used VIB funds to pay their auto loan and auto insurance bills.
In addition, the superseding indictment alleges that the defendants conspired to defraud Boston’s Office of Housing Stability by concealing thousands of dollars of household income in order to obtain $12,600 in rental assistance. They also allegedly misrepresented their actual household income to obtain rent relief funds that were intended to aid Boston residents who were facing housing insecurity.
The attorney’s office also says the defendants conspired to defraud the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance by submitting a forged employment document so that another family member could receive approximately $43,893 in unemployment assistance, bringing the total amount of fraudulent unemployment assistance received by the defendants and their co-conspirators to approximately $145,269.
Prosecutors added that Cannon-Grant allegedly filed false tax returns for 2017 and 2018 and that she failed to file tax returns for 2019 and 2020, failing to report tens of thousands of dollars that she received from VIB and an entity with which she contracted to provide consulting services.
Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office at (617) 748-3663.
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