Prosecutors want a federal judge to send Boston Black Lives Matter charity fraudster Monica Cannon-Grant to prison for a year and a half, while her attorney argues for probation.

“Ms. Cannon-Grant may not have a ‘criminal history,’ but her history of criminal conduct is extensive, spanning nearly four years, with much of it conducted under the calculated guise of charity,” federal prosecutor Dustin Chao wrote in a sentencing memo advocating for a prison term of 18 months.

“Additionally troubling, following the initial fraud charges in this case, Ms. Cannon-Grant was not remotely dissuaded from continuing her fraudulent conduct which included, one, stealing her father’s veteran’s benefits, and two, hitting up the public for charity while enjoying the beaches of St. Thomas and San Juan,” Chao continued.

The case

Cannon-Grant and her late husband Clark Grant ran the charity Violence in Boston (VIB) after Cannon-Grant became a local star in race equity activism following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police Officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis in May 2020. Floyd’s killing spurred national protest and the Black Lives Matter movement.

But the donations and grants flowing into VIB went not toward social justice work, but straight into the leaders’ pockets.

In May 2022, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston unsealed an 18-count indictment against the couple alleging that they used “VIB as a vehicle to personally enrich themselves and their designees.” The feds upped the ante the following March with a 27-count superseding indictment alleging even more fraud across three distinct conspiracies: personal use of donations to VIB, misuse of public funds including the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, and fraud related to the mortgage on the couple’s Taunton home.

Grant was killed in a motorcycle accident in March 2023 at age 39 and the charges against him were dropped. Cannon-Grant’s case docket shows she had five attorneys, either hired or appointed, before she entered into a plea deal on Sept. 18, 2025.

Under the agreement, she pleaded guilty to 18 of the charges: three counts of wire fraud conspiracy, 10 counts of wire fraud, four counts related to false or unfiled tax returns, and a single count of mail fraud. She also agreed to forfeit “assets directly traceable to the Defendant’s offenses,” which prosecutors calculated to be $227,063.

Sentence suggestions

Attorneys filed competing sentencing memos late last week.

Prosecutor Chao — who worked the case with Adam Deitch, who left the office to run for Norfolk DA — wrote that sentencing guidelines indicate an appropriate incarceration range between 18 and 24 months and recommended the low end. Chao said the range was elevated because losses exceeded $150,000 and because the offenses involved “misrepresentations with respect to the defendant’s conduct on behalf of a charitable organization.”

Defense attorney Emma Notis-McConarty suggested instead two years probation, no fine, and a mandatory special assessment fee of $1,650.

Chao’s sentencing memo is long on facts about Cannon-Grant’s criminal frauds and allegations of grifting supporters right up until the very end. Notis-McConarty’s memo is heavy on Cannon-Grant’s background and on her influence on Boston’s social justice community.

“Ms. Cannon-Grant was raised in deep poverty,” Notis-McConarty wrote. “Her family relied on welfare, food stamps, and Section 8 housing to survive. Growing up in Dorchester, Ms. Cannon-Grant was exposed to neighborhood violence, domestic abuse, and (redacted), all by the age of 15. As a child, she witnessed her father’s alcohol-fueled battery of her mother on a weekly basis.”

Notis-McConarty wrote that her client is “a loving mother, wife, and daughter who has dedicated her life to advancing social justice and serving communities in need. She has inspired a generation of social activists to speak out against injustice and to support those around them who need a voice and access to daily essentials like food and housing.”

“However,” the memo continues, “Ms. Cannon-Grant made fundamental errors in judgment. She is deeply sorry and has now taken full responsibility for her actions.”

The defense memo also stresses that “much of that money was, in fact, used to support underserved communities, families, and individuals in the Boston area and to advance social justice.”

Chao’s memo makes clear that the government sees this as a self-serving argument made convenient by unaccountable money schemes.

“The defendant’s plea for partial credit for all the above stealing schemes should be rejected by the Court. First, when the defendant chose to make ATM cash withdrawals a hallmark of her fraud scheme, she ensured that there could be no accurate accounting of the funds, whether she stole all of the money or just some of it,” Chao wrote.

“That the defendant deliberately chose a method of stealing where money could not be traced or accounted for should not accrue to her benefit at sentencing,” he continued.

Chao’s memo details many of Cannon-Grant’s frauds, including seeking donations to VIB that she ultimately wanted to use to get a rental car to replace her son’s totaled car — “I’m a see if I can get some white women to pay for it,” she texted a fellow activist, according to the memo. It also includes allegations that she continued to plead for charitable handouts to fund her legal defense and mortgage, but actually used the money for island vacations and $8,375 in purchases from Louis Vuitton.

She, her children, and her new husband, Joseph Banks, who she wed in May of last year, rely entirely on Social Security benefits derived from her late husband, according to the defense memo. She had already collected nearly $400,000 from his life insurance policy, according to the prosecution memo.

“In a July 8, 2022, post-charge, defiant livestream posted on Facebook, (Cannon-Grant) proclaimed that she would be ‘dropping receipts’ on her detractors and calling out her critics for ‘gaslighting,’” Chao wrote. “What the public now knows, however, is that the receipts say Louis Vuitton and the gaslighting is all her own.”