Tag: Boston

Longtime Boston community activist Monica Cannon-Grant is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in connection with a federal fraud case after she agreed to a plea deal last year.

Cannon-Grant pleaded guilty in September of 2025 to 18 of the 27 counts in a scheme that federal prosecutors said involved her and her late husband pocketing thousands of dollars in donations to their nonprofit. She admitted to wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, mail fraud, filing false tax returns and failing to file tax returns, prosecutors said. She’s due for sentencing on Jan. 29.

She is scheduled to be sentenced at 2:30 p.m. in federal court in Boston. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 18 months in prison and money forfeiture.

Cannon-Grant and her late husband Clark Grant were indicted by a federal grand jury in 2022 on 18 counts for diverting funds from their Violence in Boston nonprofit for personal expenses and collecting about $100,000 in illegal unemployment benefits, among other charges.

A subsequent superseding indictment a year later charged them with 27 counts. The new charges centered on alleged schemes to use pandemic assistance funds from the Boston Resiliency Fund for purposes not disclosed to the city, including for their own personal benefit, and to fraudulently obtain rental assistance payments from Boston’s Office of Housing Stability.

Clark Grant died in a motorcycle crash in Easton in March of 2023.

Monica Cannon-Grant, a figurehead in Boston’s activism community, and her husband are accused of spending their nonprofit’s funds on themselves.

Federal prosecutors said the couple received nearly $54,000 in pandemic relief funds and then allegedly withdrew approximately $30,000 in cash from the Violence in Boston bank account — some of which they allegedly kept. Cannon-Grant and Grant also allegedly used some of the nonprofit’s funds to pay their auto loan and auto insurance bills.

The prominent local activists were also accused of conspiring to defraud both Boston’s Office of Housing Stability — by concealing thousands of dollars of household income in order to obtain $12,600 in rental assistance from the City of Boston — and the state’s Department of Unemployment Assistance — by submitting a forged employment document so that another family member could receive nearly $44,000 in unemployment assistance.

Federal prosecutors said the total amount of fraudulent unemployment assistance received by the Grants and their co-conspirators was approximately $145,269.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office also alleged that Cannon-Grant filed false tax returns for 2017 and 2018 and that she failed to file tax returns for 2019 and 2020, failing to report tens of thousands of dollars that she received from Violence in Boston and an entity with which she contracted to provide consulting services.

Violence in Boston was created to raise money to reduce violence, raise social awareness and support community, but founder Monica Cannon-Grant has now been indicted on fraud charges.

Cannon-Grant’s activism, including the organization of a rally in the city in 2020 to protest the killing of George Floyd and other Black people by police, earned her numerous awards, such as The Boston Globe Magazine’s Bostonian of the Year award and a Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us award, both in 2020.

Violence in Boston was founded in 2017 with the goal of reducing violence, raising social awareness and aiding community causes in Boston. Cannon-Grant was the organization’s CEO and founder. Her husband was a founding director and was also a full-time employee for a commuter services company until recently.

According to a pinned post on the nonprofit’s Facebook page, Violence in Boston shut down and suspended all programs as of July 6, 2022.

A police report includes new details about a fight during a Boston Bruins game at TD Garden on Saturday that resulted in a man being seriously injured.

Boston police said in their incident report that officers assigned to a detail for Saturday’s game responded for “a person that fell off the balcony” around 3:07 p.m. Multiple officers were called to Loge Section 2 for an initial report from TD Garden security of an unconscious male who had fallen down to that section from the above balcony level.

As officers gathered more information from multiple witnesses in the area, it was determined that the victim was pushed while standing on the stairs and fell backward, according to the police report.

The officers and TD Garden security found the victim lying on the ground, semi conscious and breathing, with his eyes slightly open in Row AA of Club Section 113. Officers immediately began to render aid and requested EMS, who stabilized the victim on scene before taking him to Massachusetts General Hospital for further evaluation.

The victim, whose name has not been released, told police en route to hospital that he drank something and had no memory of the incident and didn’t know why he was going to hospital. He sustained an abrasion to the back of his head, police said. The extent of his head injury was not immediately known.

Back at TD Garden, officers gathered more witness statements to locate and identify the suspect.

One witness told police that he was in same row and observed the victim to be intoxicated and agitating the suspect and the woman that he was with. He said he saw the victim put his middle finger directly in the face of the suspect’s companion.

A second witness told police that both the victim and suspect were heckling each other back and forth. Then the victim allegedly continued to inch closer to the suspect and his companion, at which point the suspect allegedly grabbed the victim by the neck and pushed him, causing him to fall backward down the stairs.

Another witness gave police a suspect description of a man with long black hair, wearing glasses and a New York Rangers hat and jersey. She stated that a disturbance ensued while the victim, who appeared to be intoxicated, was harassing other Rangers fans. She said friends were trying to get him to leave to avoid continued escalation but the fight continued until the victim was pushed down the stairs “where he rolled down the stairs to the lower foyer.”

A fourth witness said that during intermission between the second and third periods, he saw the suspect and his female companion having a discussion where it looked like the woman was trying to get the suspect to leave. The witness told police he then saw the victim and the suspect arguing. The suspect, who was standing higher up, then pushed the victim down the stairs, at which point the witness notified his security team and waited for Boston police to respond. He said the suspect left right after he pushed the victim.

An additional witness seated in the area said she saw the suspect and victim arguing before she saw the victim fall three to five steps down, followed by the suspect heading up the stairs towards the Club Level to leave the area.

A description of the suspect was broadcast, and he was later identified as 48-year-old Aaron Tucker, of Vermont, according to the police report. He was seated in Section 113, Row E, during the game and was wearing a black hat with a blue NY Rangers #73 jersey, as well as a black sweatshirt underneath and blue jeans.

A photo of Tucker was disseminated by detectives, and TD Garden security cameras captured the suspect leaving the venue around 3 p.m. through the east exit before continuing on foot down Causeway Street.

Cameras captured Tucker and the woman he was with at the game in the area of Endicott Street and Lafayette Avenue, according to police. Officers located and approached Tucker on Lafayette, where he was taken into custody without incident.

Tucker was taken in for further questioning by detectives and then transported to Nashua Street Jail, where he was booked for the alleged aggravated assault. Tucker is facing charges of assault and battery resulting in serious bodily injury and assault and battery on someone 60+ or disabled with injury.

He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had hired an attorney.