Prosecutors: Boston City Councilor Hired Family Members, Made Thousands on Illegal Kickback Scheme
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Boston, Massachusetts City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (D) was arrested by the FBI on Friday morning on public corruption charges.
The “embattled” official, who represents the city’s seventh district, is accused of taking part in an alleged kickback scheme that got her thousands of dollars from a staffer in exchange for a “large bonus,” WCVB reported.
Fernandes Anderson, 45, was taken into custody from her Dorchester home by special agents, according to Fox News.
She is now facing five federal wire fraud charges and one federal count of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds.
“These six felony charges stem from an alleged kickback scheme that she orchestrated to obtain several thousand dollars in taxpayer money in exchange for a bribe she paid to a staffer who she gave a very large bonus,” U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement obtained by WCVB.
Prosecutors believe that Fernandes Anderson orchestrated the alleged scheme, which involved secretly hiring a family member as a staffer and giving them a large bonus in exchange for a cash payment from part of that bonus, in order to pay off a fine she was issued from a previous ethics investigation — into unlawfully hiring family members.
The city councilor, who was first elected to a two-year term in November 2021 before winning re-election in November 2023, hired two family members during her first term as salaried employees of her City Councilor Staff, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Massachusetts said.
The employees — who she gave raises to bring their compensation to $70,000/year — were her sister and son, WCVB reported.
Because hiring immediate family members as staffers is against the law, Fernandes Anderson was forced to terminate them around August 2022 and was handed a $5,000 civil penalty fine from the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission in the spring of 2023, prosecutors said.
However, before she was slapped with the fine, Fernandes Anderson hired another relative who was not an immediate family member.
Fernandes Anderson allegedly emailed a City of Boston employee around November 2022 about hiring the new staffer, referred to as “Staff Member A” in the indictment, claiming that “for the record [they are] not related to me.”
Prosecutors said the city councilor began facing “personal financial difficulty” around early to mid-2023, which included the outstanding $5,000 fine.
The indictment further alleged that Fernandes Anderson told Staff Member A in or around May 2023 that she would give them a bonus if they would give her a portion of it back.
“Staff Member A agreed to the arrangement with Fernandes Anderson,” prosecutors said.
Fernandes Anderson then allegedly emailed a City of Boston employee to process a bonus payment of $13,000 to Staff Member A, which was “more than twice as large as the total amount of all bonus payments to Fernandes Anderson’s other staff combined,” the attorney’s office explained.
“Staff Member A deposited the bonus check on or about May 26, 2023 into their account at Santander Bank. It is alleged that, at Fernandes Anderson’s direction, Staff Member A then made separate cash withdrawals of the payment on three separate dates: $3,000 on May 31, 2023; $3,000 on June 5, 2023; and $4,000 on June 9, 2023,” the prosecutors continued.
Immediately following the final withdrawal, Fernandes Anderson and Staff Member A allegedly met in a City Hall bathroom where the staffer gave the councilor $7,000 in cash.
In another scandal facing her, the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance last month sent Fernandes Anderson’s campaign a notice saying it had not filed deposit information before the deadline and had taken contributions that exceeded the legal limit, according to WCVB.
“I’m not thinking about quitting. I’m not thinking about stepping down. I’m not thinking about any of that. I’m thinking about the work and continuing,” she said at the time.
Following the latest allegations, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called on Fernandes Anderson to resign.
“Like any member of the community, Councilor Fernandes Anderson has the right to a fair legal process,” she said in a statement obtained by the local outlet. “But the serious nature of these charges undermines the public trust and will prevent her from effectively serving the city. I urge Councilor Fernandes Anderson to resign.”
“Elected officials have a duty to serve the public with the highest integrity and not to abuse positions of trust for personal gain. By allegedly orchestrating a scheme to funnel public funds into her own pocket, City Councilor Fernandes Anderson betrayed the trust of her constituents and violated her fiduciary duty as a public servant,” Levy said in a statement from his office. “Our office remains committed to holding those who abuse public office accountable and protecting precious public resources.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office Jodi Cohen said, “Using public office for personal gain is a crime. Her behavior, as alleged in today’s indictment, is a slap in the face to the hardworking taxpayers in the city of Boston who have every right to expect that the city’s funds are in good and honest hands.”
“This case illustrates how the FBI, and our partners are working hard every day to battle public corruption and the corrosive damage it does to people’s faith in government,” she added.
Jonathan Wlodyka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Boston Field Office, also condemned Fernandes Anderson.
“Elected officials are held to a higher standard when they take an oath to serve, but to Fernandes Anderson, her oath meant nothing when she allegedly chose to steal from the City of Boston and her constituents,” he said. “We are committed to working with our law enforcement partners to root out public corruption at every level.”
Each of the five wire fraud charges come with a sentence of up to 20 years, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
The charge of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds comes with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
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