We’ll never know exactly why some people decide to choose a life of scamming — a luxury lifestyle, instant monetary gain, pirated FireSticks?! — but one thing that gets proven time and time again is that it’s never worth it in the long run.
A married couple from Boston found that out the hard way after being charged with multiple felonies for using donations they retrieved for their non-profit, Violence in Boston, and using the funds on vacations, car rentals, shopping and even to get approved for a home.
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As reported by The Boston Globe, Monica Cannon-Grant and her husband Clark Grant are facing an 18-count indictment, including two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, 13 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy, one count of making false statements to a mortgage-lending company and one count of mail fraud. Each charge represents a total of three separate schemes The Grants took part in: defrauding donors, illegally collecting an estimated $100,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits and lying on a mortgage application.
They started off by used their connection to the Black Lives Matter movement to secure a $3,000 donation in 2017 to feed children in need, which ended up being privately transferred to a family member’s bank account.
Take a look below at a few examples of what these two were using the hundreds of thousands of donation dollars on, via The Boston Globe:
“In a June 2019 ceremony at the Suffolk district attorney’s office, Monica Cannon-Grant was handed a check for $6,000, a grant awarded to her nonprofit, Violence in Boston Inc., to take a group of at-risk young men to a retreat in Philadelphia.
The trip was meant ‘to give these young men exposure to communities outside of the violence riddled neighborhoods that they navigate daily’ and focus on community-building activities and coping skills, according to her grant proposal.
But the trip never happened, federal prosecutors say. Instead, they allege, Cannon-Grant and her husband, Clark Grant, spent the grant money on themselves — taking a vacation to Maryland, dining at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Shake Shack, and other restaurants, and paying for car rentals, groceries, Walmart purchases, and visits to a Boston nail salon.”
The Grants are also accused of raising more than $1 million in grants and donations for people in need, yet using a huge portion of that money on themselves to pay rent on their Boston apartment and even buy a relative a new car.
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Their scamming even extending into tax season, which more than likely is where The Grants ultimately slipped up. Monica reportedly told both the IRS and state attorney general’s charity division that she was receiving zero income, yet had been paying herself $2,788 a week since October 2020. After being arrested at her home in Taunton, Cannon-Grant was released on personal recognizance this past Tuesday after appearing before US Magistrate Judge Judith Dein. She will be allowed to still run Violence in Boston, mainly a food pantry that operates two days a week, but is prohibited from handling finances.
She continues to maintain her innocence, with her lawyer Robert Goldstein stating, “VIB [Violence in Boston] and Monica have been fully cooperating and their production of records remains ongoing. 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. We remain fully confident Monica will be vindicated when a complete factual record emerges.” As for her husband Clark, who was busted back in October for pandemic-relief and mortgage scams, an arraignment has yet to be scheduled according to the Boston US Attorney’s Office.
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