A prominent Boston-based Black Lives Matter activist with ties to current and former members of Congress faces a federal investigation after allegedly pilfering funds from her multimillion-dollar charity.
Monica Cannon-Grant, the founder and CEO of the charity group Violence in Boston, rose to prominence in the Boston BLM community after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. Something of a powerbroker in Boston Democratic politics, she reportedly established a close working relationship with Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu when the two served on the Boston City Council. Former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III hailed Cannon-Grant’s endorsement of his failed 2020 Senate campaign.
Cannon-Grant acknowledged in a podcast filmed Thursday that she has been under federal investigation since October, when federal authorities arrested her husband and raided their home after he was charged with committing COVID-19 unemployment fraud and mortgage fraud.
“They ultimately used him in order to investigate me,” Cannon-Grant said in the podcast, which was filmed at her organization’s headquarters.
The Boston Globe reported the federal investigation against Cannon-Grant on Monday.
Cannon-Grant’s husband, Clark Grant, is accused of fraudulently claiming Violence in Boston’s bank account as his own personal property when applying for a $402,573 mortgage in May 2021. Grant claimed in the mortgage application that the account contained $461,548.73, according to his criminal complaint.
Cannon-Grant alleged during her podcast Thursday that members of the black community who were jealous of her meteoric rise “partnered with white supremacy” in an attempt to bring her down.
“In 2020, we went from a $40,000, $50,000 a year organization to a [multimillion-dollar] organization — more money, more problems,” Cannon-Grant said. “The moment funding started coming in and the world started seeing us doing the work, which prompted awards and accolades, it was, ‘I want what she got. She don’t deserve it.'”
“This is what happens when you’re successful,” she added. “This is what happens when you don’t accept mediocrity. This is what happens when you’re successful and nobody can explain your success because it’s not theirs to explain.”
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether any of the donations provided to Cannon-Grant’s charity were used to pay for her personal expenses, the Boston Globe reported. At least one prominent donor to the charity, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury for records related to a $6,000 grant it provided to her group in 2019.
In 2020, Cannon-Grant was dubbed Bostonian of the year by Boston Globe Magazine, and she was also honored by Boston Magazine as the year’s best social justice advocate following her rise to prominence.
Pressley, a member of the so-called Squad of liberal Democratic congresswomen, told MassLive in 2019 that the gun violence hearings Cannon-Grant organized before the Boston City Council were a highlight of her tenure on the council.
Pressley came under fire during her 2020 reelection campaign over her ties to Cannon-Grant after the activist uploaded a scathing tirade against Pressley’s challenger, a black Republican woman, over her marriage to a white man.
“This heifer running against Ayanna Pressley — this one here with the white husband. At some point, we going to have to have a conversation with black folks who get in a relationship with white folks and then forget that they black,” Cannon-Grant said.
“If white vagina and white penises jeopardize your melanin, then we need you to sit in the back of the classroom. … This ain’t your part of the show, and you don’t get to talk right now,” she added.
Cannon-Grant’s charity has no known relationship to the national BLM group, but news of the federal investigation comes as the national organization faces its own reckoning over its finances.
The BLM Global Network Foundation, the charity that serves as the face of the national BLM movement, voluntarily shut down its ability to raise funds in early February after a Washington Examiner investigation found that the group has, since May, had no known leader in charge of the tens of millions of dollars it raised in 2020.
Also in February, the national BLM group received legal threats from California and Washington over its failure to report its 2020 finances. While California gave BLM the green light to resume fundraising in late February after the group pulled an accounting gimmick that gave it until May 15 to report its 2020 finances, BLM remains out of compliance in Washington.
The national BLM group, which has for years faced accusations of financial impropriety from local BLM activists and chapters, was also booted from Amazon’s charity service, AmazonSmile, in February over its compliance issues with states across the country.
*story by The Washington Examiner
