CANNON-GRANT LAWYER BEGS OFF
Activist says she will seek a court-appointed attorney
The lawyer for Monica Cannon-Grant has filed a motion to withdraw from her federal fraud case.
“Now comes the undersigned counsel and hereby moves to withdraw his appearance as counsel for the Defendant, Monica Cannon-Grant,” attorney Robert Goldstein wrote in the two-sentence motion. “Counsel understands that Ms. Cannon-Grant will seek court-appointed counsel in this matter.”
In addition to that, the document filed Wednesday stated, “The government has no objection to the request to withdraw as counsel.” Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein will have to rule on the order.
Cannon-Grant and her husband, Clark Grant — who has been represented by a federal public defender, Julie-Ann Olson, throughout the case — were federally indicted in March on 18 fraud-related charges in the management of their charity, Violence in Boston.
The indictment was unsealed March 15, which is the same day Goldstein appeared on the case docket as Cannon-Grant’s attorney. Goldstein is a retained attorney, not a public defender.
Prosecutors say that the couple used funds donated or granted to the charity for their own ends, including funding personal means, car payments and nail-salon appointments. That is the first of three distinct elements charged in the indictment, prosecutor Dustin Chao said at the last in-person hearing in the case on June 10. The second is the misuse of public funds, including the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which the government said the couple applied for and received despite Grant being employed full-time, according to Chao. The third tentpole allegation is fraud related to the mortgage on the couple’s Taunton home.
Goldstein had no comment on the matter when contacted by the Herald Wednesday. A Herald request for comment forwarded by Goldstein to Cannon-Grant for a previous story has not been returned, and a new request for comment forwarded Wednesday was not immediately returned.
Cannon-Grant received permission to apply for unemployment assistance — a program she is accused of defrauding — on Aug. 18.
Federal public defender offices, of which there are now 81 across the federal courts system, were set up “as counterparts to federal prosecutors in U.S. Attorneys Offices and an institutional resource for providing defense counsel in those districts,” according to U.S. Courts. Federal public defenders, like their prosecutor counterparts, are paid a salary.
An alternative to a federal public defender is a Criminal Justice Act panel attorney, which is a private attorney who is available to take on federal defense cases on the court’s dime. Those panel attorneys can receive $148 per hour in non-capital cases like this one.