Monica Cannon-Grant, a leader within the Black Lives Matter movement, was found guilty of diverting donations made to the organization to herself, pocketing rental assistance, and fraudulently collecting unemployment payments. Cannon-Grant, who was named “Bostonian of the Year” back in 2020, was ordered by the court to pay back $224,000 that she took from her own nonprofit group.
Cannon-Grant, an activist with BLM who rose through the ranks and became a prominent figure during the riots and protests that took place following the death of George Floyd in 2020, was ordered by a judge on March 23 to pay back every dime she diverted from her organization. The $224,000 she’s been ordered to repay includes $181,000 of donations that she embezzled from Violence in Boston Inc.
Along with stealing from her own organization, Cannon-Grant pocketed $33,000 in fraudulent unemployment payments along with $12,600 in rental assistance. In January 2026, she was ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to pay $106,000 in restitution for her crime. She was also slapped with four years of probation, six months of house arrest, along with 100 hours of community service.
According to The Post Millennial, she didn’t receive any actual prison time, even though prosecutors requested she spend 18 months behind bars. Cannon-Grant formed Violence in Boston Inc, in 2017. However, in 2020, she helped put together a protest that pulled in thousands of participants over the Black Lives Matter events.
She was later given several awards, going on to become the Boston Globe’s Bostonian of the Year. But while that was going on, behind the scenes she and her husband were getting wealthy from fraud and through abusing the nonprofit organization they established. The couple often dined out, took expensive vacations, and treated themselves to a plethora of other luxuries.
The couple raised a whopping $1 million for their charity, along with $60,000 in pandemic relief funds, all of which went into their pockets. During her sentencing in January, Cannon-Grant pleaded guilty to a shocking total of 18 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and tax violations. Her husband has since passed away.
The Violence in Boston Inc, organization was shutdown by its board in 2022. A message was posted on its official website at the time it was closed down that read, “I regret to inform you that Violence in Boston Inc will be suspending all programs and shutting down, effective immediately. I can’t speak on whether the decision to dissolve the organization was an easy one to make, as this decision was made by the Violence in Boston board of directors.”
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Clark Grant, Cannon-Grant’s husband, died in March 2023 due to a motorcycle crash. According to CBS News, an Easton police officer, aided by a passerby, performed CPR on Grant until firefighters arrived on the scene. He was then transported to Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton where he later died. The official report for the crash says that Grant was driving along Route 138 when a Jeep Grand Cherokee slammed into him after exiting a parking lot. The man driving the Jeep was not harmed during the incident.
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