Former Boston organizer Monica Cannon-Grant ordered to pay $224,000 in federal fraud case

A federal judge has ordered former community organizer Monica Cannon-Grant to repay $224,000 tied to fraud that included embezzling from her nonprofit, Violence in Boston.

In January, Cannon-Grant was sentenced to four years probation, six months of home detention and 100 hours of community service after pleading guilty last year to 18 counts ranging from wire fraud to filing false tax returns.

In 2022, Cannon-Grant and her then-husband Clark Grant were charged in a sweeping federal indictment that alleged they used the Violence in Boston donations for vacations and personal expenses. Donations came from individuals, but also the Suffolk County district attorney's office and the city of Boston. The couple was also accused of collecting pandemic unemployment and rental benefits they weren't owed.

Clark Grant died in a motorcycle crash in 2023.

It was a shocking fall for Cannon-Grant, who had become a prominent activist in Boston after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. She organized marches that drew thousands of people to the streets to protest police brutality. And she was named one of the Bostonians of the Year in 2020 by the Boston Globe.

The total forfeiture amount, ordered by Judge Angel Kelley, is made up of roughly $180,000 in money diverted from her nonprofit, with the rest fraudulently obtained rental assistance and pandemic unemployment funds.

Violence in Boston was shut down by its board in 2022.