BLM-linked activist Monica Cannon-Grant admits conning donors to fund her lavish life-style

A once-celebrated Boston social activist has pleaded responsible to defrauding donors — together with Black Lives Matter — out of hundreds of {dollars} that she used as a private piggy financial institution.

Monica Cannon-Grant, 44, pleaded responsible Monday to 18 counts of fraud-related crimes that she dedicated together with her late husband whereas working their Violence in Boston (VIB) activists group, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.

The activist scammed cash — together with $3,000 from a BLM group — whereas claiming it was to assist feed youngsters and run protests like one in 2020 over the homicide of George Floyd and police violence.

Cannon-Grant additionally conned her means into getting $100,000 in federal pandemic-related unemployment advantages — which she used to repay her private auto mortgage and automobile insurance coverage coverage.

But she has now confessed to transferring funds to private financial institution accounts to pay for hire, purchasing sprees, supply meals, visits to a nail salon — and even a summer season trip to Maryland.

She “repeatedly scammed multiple public financial programs and stole money donated by members of the public who believed their donations would aid in reducing violence and promote social awareness,” stated United States Attorney Leah B. Foley. 

“Instead, Cannon-Grant used donations to satisfy her own greed, while falsely portraying herself as a legitimate nonprofit organizer. She betrayed the trust of everyone who donated and the public who supported her fraudulent charity,” she added.

The costs contain a most sentence of a long time behind bars — however prosecutors are looking for a much more lenient punishment, with a max of two years in jail, according to the Boston Herald.

Cannon-Grant’s public activism earned her quite a few native accolades, together with the Boston Globe Magazine’s Bostonian of the Year award and a Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us award, each in 2020.

The activist and her husband have been arrested in March 2022. VIB shut down in July 2024, in keeping with a pinned assertion on the group’s Facebook web page.

Cannon-Grant’s husband, Clark Grant, who was additionally federally charged within the case, was killed in a bike crash in Easton, Massachusetts, in March 2023 and the fees in opposition to him have been dropped.