Feds probe deeper into power couple atop Hub nonprofit
The feds are continuing their investigation into a leader of Violence In Boston, the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed a day after a director of the politically connected nonprofit was arrested.
The husband of Violence In Boston’s founder Monica Cannon-Grant, Clark Grant, on Tuesday was pinched by the feds on pandemic unemployment and mortgage fraud charges.
Grant is accused of making fraudulent Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims and incorporating them in a mortgage application for their Taunton residence. Cannon-Grant has not been charged, and the search warrant remains sealed.
“This remains an ongoing investigation,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
Violence In Boston — and specifically Cannon-Grant, once declared “Bostonian of the Year” by The Boston Globe — is deeply enmeshed in the city’s politics, including having ties to both mayoral candidates.
Cannon-Grant supports Michelle Wu, the front-runner in the mayoral race, and she’s posted her support of Wu on the Violence In Boston Facebook page.
Asked about the charges against Cannon-Grant’s husband and the alleged involvement of the Violence In Boston funds, Wu told reporters, “It’s an unfortunate situation. Whenever there’s action like this that happens, I will be following to see what happens with this investigation, but I know that there’s been good work done by this organization in the community.”
But Violence In Boston’s Facebook page also lists mayoral contender Annissa Essaibi-George, a multiterm at-large city councilor like Wu, as a donor for a couple of different events, mostly focused on providing food.
Essaibi-George’s campaign declined to comment.
Cannon-Grant also has listed donations from thenMayor Martin Walsh, state representatives Liz Miranda and Chynah Tyler and City Councilor Julia Mejia. Violence in Boston even opened up a Hyde Park office with the help of Walsh.
Cannon-Grant’s organization started small, promoting anti-violence efforts and handing out food to those in need. But her profile rose meteorically amid the protests in 2020 over racial issues, peaking as she organized a 20,000-strong protest in Franklin Park in which she yelled to a cheering crowd, “F— the police.” It was after that that the Globe named her “Bostonian of the Year.”
But it’s not the first time politicians’ associations with Cannon-Grant have raised questions. Last summer, she went on an extended rant about a Black Republican’s interracial relationship, drawing criticism from various people including District Attorney
Rachael Rollins.
At that time, CannonGrant was supporting U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, whose campaign she worked on, and the Senate run by then-U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who kept showing up with her after the fact.
This year, Cannon-Grant promoted an unsubstantiated theory that a Black teen in Hopkinton was lynched, which the Middlesex district attorney has said there’s no evidence of.