Activist Monica Cannon-Grant sentenced to probation, home confinement for slew of fraud charges

Crime

The former CEO of the Violence in Boston nonprofit was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in September 2025.

Monica Cannon-Grant, the founder and former CEO of the Violence in Boston nonprofit (VIB), was sentenced to probation and house arrest Thursday after she pleaded guilty last year to over a dozen fraud-related charges, federal prosecutors announced.

Cannon-Grant, 44, of Taunton, was sentenced in federal court Thursday to four years of probation, six months of home detention, and 100 hours of community service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a statement. She will also pay $106,003 in restitution and forfeit an additional amount that has yet to be determined.

In September 2025, Cannon-Grant pleaded guilty to 18 charges, including 10 counts of wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of mail fraud, two counts of filing false tax returns, and two counts of failing to file tax returns. She and her late husband, Clark Grant, were first charged in an 18-count indictment in March 2022, which was revised to a 27-count indictment in March 2023.

Two months later, Clark Grant was killed in a motorcycle crash in Easton. The charges against him were subsequently dismissed.

Cannon-Grant formally established VIB in 2017 to “reduce violence, raise social awareness and aid community causes in Greater Boston,” according to federal prosecutors. She served as CEO, while Clark Grant was a founding director.

Through fundraising, Cannon-Grant and her husband raised more than $1 million. In July 2022, VIB was shut down amid the fraud charges.

From 2017 until at least 2020, the couple used thousands of dollars in VIB donations to pay for personal expenditures, including hotels, travel, gas, restaurants, food deliveries, and nail salons. Cannon-Grant later conspired to use the nonprofit to defraud the Boston Resiliency Fund, a COVID-19 pandemic relief fund established by the City of Boston, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

After she received $53,977 in relief funds, Cannon-Grant withdrew $30,000 in cash from the VIB bank account, deposited a total of $6,200 into her personal checking account, and made payments to her car insurance policy and auto loan. She then lied about these personal expenses to the city and falsely reported that the relief funds were appropriately spent, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The couple also committed fraud against the city’s Office of Housing Stability by misrepresenting their household income to receive $12,600 in rental assistance. They also submitted false applications for pandemic unemployment assistance, prosecutors said.

Cannon-Grant faced further tax charges for falsifying her 2017 and 2018 tax returns and failing to file her 2019 and 2020 tax returns, according to prosecutors. She omitted tens of thousands in income that she had received through her work at VIB and as a consultant.

The former community organizer rose to prominence in 2020 when she led some of Boston’s largest social justice rallies and donated food to the public following the murder of George Floyd. Before the nonprofit was shut down, the city and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office both donated to it.

Cannon-Grant’s trial was scheduled to begin Oct. 14, 2025 before she filed a notice to plead guilty the month before. If convicted, she could have faced decades in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fines.

“Monica Cannon-Grant’s crimes were not a momentary lapse in judgment — they were a calculated pattern of deception that spanned years,” U. S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said in the statement. “She repeatedly lied to donors, government agencies, and the public, even after being caught — all while presenting herself as a champion for others. Fraud disguised as activism or charity is still fraud.”