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Councilor Fernandes Anderson charged with getting kickback in a City Hall ladies room from a relative she put on payroll, but not one of the ones she was fined by the state for hiring
By adamg on Fri, 12/06/2024 - 8:09am
E-mail to city employee claiming new hire was not a relative. From the indictment.
City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (Roxbury) was arrested this morning on federal charges that she hired a relative and demanded kickbacks from her - $7,000 in cash handed over in a City Hall women's room.
Fernandes Anderson, first elected in 2021, was arrested this morning, US District Court records show. Somebody tipped off WCVB, which got a camera crew to her house in time to video FBI agents arrest her.
Fernandes Anderson faces five counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud and one count of aiding and abetting theft concerning programs receiving federal funds.
The staff member whose job has gotten Fernandes Anderson in trouble was not a member of her immediate family, according to the indictment against her, so that person's hiring did not conflict with state ethics laws, unlike her sister and son, whose hiring led to a $5,000 fine by the state Ethics Commission.
However, the indictment continued, when Fernandes Anderson hired the third relative in November, 2022, at a salary of $65,000, she immediately hid that the new employee was related to her.
The indictment continues that Fernandes Anderson ran into personal financial difficulties starting in early 2023, including missed rent and car payments, bank overdrafts and the $5,000 state ethics fine, she hatched a plan to give the relative "extra pay in the form of a large bonus," part of which the employee would then have to give to Fernandes Anderson.
To cover up the scheme - since staff bonus information was public information - Fernandes Anderson told all her staff workers they would be getting bonuses - but that the relative, dubbed "Staff Member A" by the indictment, would be getting a larger bonus for alleged prior volunteer work.
On May 3, the indictment states, the councilor sent e-mail to a City Hall employee to process a $13,000 bonus payment to Staff Member A - more than twice as much as the entire total of bonuses for the rest of her staff.
The bonus was included in a May 26 salary check, which the employee deposited in their account at Santander bank. At Fernandes Anderson's direction, the indictment states, the relative then made three withdrawals, over a ten-day period, totaling $10,000.
At 4:11 p.m. on June 9, the indictment states, Staff Member A sent Fernandes Anderson a one-word text: "Bathroom." The councilor replied: "Ready."
Shortly following these texts, Staff Member A handed Fernandes Anderson approximately $7,000 in cash at a bathroom in City Hall.
The five wire-fraud abetting counts relate to the five specific alleged acts Staff Member A took - starting with depositing the check with the bonus, the three withdrawals and then the hand of cash. The federal-funds charge relates to the fact that the city of Boston receives more than $10,000 a year in federal funds.
Innocent, etc.
Complete indictment (11.6M PDF).
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Comments
Indictment link is broken,
Indictment link is broken, only shows the photo embedded at the top
Apologies
There's now a working link to the indictment at the end of the article.
This is great!
What a great way to kick off the weekend. It’s also the least surprising breaking news. What a fraud. There’s a few more that will follow from that council. Hopefully my fellow voters in the city wake up
Corruption is Bad
Feds quick to bust local pols taking thousand dollar kickbacks... which is good.
Feds busting once and future presidents and supreme court justices committing much more blatant and damaging corruption on a billion dollar level... not so much.
The law only applies to the little people here. Our country is so broken.
Agreed
Hunter Biden should be in jail right now.
MAGA Bot
What is this, some kind of bot? Do you think this is a sick burn?
I'm fine with that. Now do the Trump family. Now do Clarence Thomas.
Dumbass
Trump should be in jail too. Any other assumptions your dumbass wants to make about me?
Again, the far left calling anyone that doesn’t agree with them MAGA or right winger and it will be their downfall.
Ha
Sure, you bring up MAGA shibboleth "Hunter" for absolutely no reason and I'm the dumbass.
I think your points have been made
No reason to continue arguing over our 34-Convictions-in-Chief here.
Any other convicted felons that should be in jail now?
Wondering if anyone else comes to mind.
appearances
robo operates above the fray; too enlightened to take sides like the rest of us plebes. in actuality both sides are bad, you see. a partisan hack like yourself does not possess the required nuance to reach that conclusion.
Classless and Arrogant Tania undermines the cause
Racism is real, but most women of color that I know aren't whining and stealing. They go about their lives every day. Tania undermined political gains and indirectly cast aspersions on her sisters with her shameful antics in the Council, and now this.
Remind me when
Hunter Biden was an elected official? But, yeah, sure, he should be in jail for a crime that almost never is given jail time. I'll give him time served for having marjorie taylor greene display blown up, uncensored, posters of his dick pics in official house sessions and thus having them entered into the record. Not something any private citizen or elected official should have happen to them.
Hunter Biden should not be in jail right now
He was prosecuted for crimes literally no on else gets prosecuted for, according to Andrew Weissmann , former federal prosecutor and current NYU law professor.
His convictions:
1) He didn't pay his taxes on time, but did in fact pay them with interest later.
2)He lied about using drugs on an application to own a gun.
The prosecution was clearly and undeniably a political hit job by a MAGA prosecutor, started during the trump administration and continued by Merrick Garland in a misguided effort to appear to be "impartial".
Yes the laws are on the books, and yes he was convicted, but when he is singled out because of political reasons, he should not be in jail.
Truth said, robo, unfortunately.
Shame on President Biden for sinking so low.
Why should republicans get
Why should republicans get away with everything? If Biden hadn't run for president, Hunter would not have been a target. Hunter should get probation and pay back every cent of taxes, but Trump wanted him incarcerated. Biden was genuinely afraid for Hunter's physical safety.
Joe Biden betrayed the justice system.
Threw it under the bus.
As far as what might have happened to Hunter otherwise, It’s all supposition. We will never know.
we betrayed Joe Biden first.
we betrayed Joe Biden first. How many times do republicans need to crash the economy before stop trusting them?
Who is “we”?
And how did “we” betray him?
Regardless of the answers to that, two wrongs don’t make a right. But so many people think that these days. No wonder Trump won.
There is nothing wrong with
There is nothing wrong with pardoning Hunter. The issue isn't the pardon, its the promise. It is also the question of all of the traditional pardons getting ignored right now.
If you can’t answer the questions, …
…. no worries.
if you can't understand why
if you can't understand why trolls ask questions and become trolls then good luck
JFC
Have you listened to a word Trump said over the last 4 years? He's going to go after all his "enemies" real and perceived. Look at the absolute Q-anon lunatic with an enemies list he wants to run the FBI. I'd take him at his word.
Yeah, Trump’s word is as good as gold.
Hunter Biden is insignificant and dug his own grave. He should have been taking care of his dad not the other way around.
No Argument
I also don't blame his dad for pardoning him. It's what any father would do and it hurts nobody, especially with the storm coming up the pike.
Trump, Biden, Tania
It is interesting to observe how quickly the Federal investigators were able to track three cash withdrawal in the total amount of $10,000, and secure an indictment, all in less than 12 months. The same gang of crack investigators had no luck in tracking hundreds of millions in influence pedaling and hush money from the other two dopes and their families.
So a twice-elected city
So a twice-elected city councilor is "the little people," you say?
One person to blame
Merrick Garland.
Is he corrupt or weak? I think the latter.
I'm not sure there's anything they could charge the Supreme Court justices with unless there was probable cause for bribery
There's a saying for that
It's like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
This happens in so many government agencies. Take the IRS for example. Much easier to identify and charge small-time joes with tax evasion, than to analyze and reconcile the insanely complex taxes of wealthy people. And so they just crack the easy nuts with the sledgehammer and ignore most of the huge boulders.
Bathroom? Ready?
100% Chef's Kiss on this.
How stupid can one be?
Remember, this is the person who didn't know Mass and Cass bordered her district.
This person posted a picture of Ho Chi Mihn to her twitter feed calling him a hero and not realizing that the reason that a lot of voters in Dorchester are in Dorchester because Mr. Ho and friends killed their families.
God bless you City of Boston voters. People here harp on Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy for no other reason that they are locals and you know, that Irish American thing, but if you can't scorn this person for being nothing more than a grifter, you have no credibility.
"She's Progressive". Yes progressive in needing a lesson in how to take graft properly.
Have fun in Danbury dear.
Thankfully
The master himself will be in the whitehouse for the next 4+ years to give lessons.
There's plenty of political corruption on every side and it shouldn't be tolerated, irrespective of the person's party or beneficial work they might have done. No one gets a pass. It's wrong when it's the president and it's wrong when it's the lowest level city employee.
Sure
But suburban, more centrist voters elected the last four speakers of the house who were all "you know, that other thing". Three of whom are now convicted felons and one was labelled an unindicted co-conspirator by the prosecution. Based on the pig-headed lack of talent exhibited by current speaker Mariano, I don't give him much odds for breaking that streak.
It's not just "City of Boston" voters.
Um…
DiMasi and Finneran represented Boston-centered districts. Flaherty and DeLeo were in districts just outside the city, but I would hardly call Cambridge or Winthrop very “suburban”.
Never write when you can speak
Never speak when you can nod
Never nod when you can wink
Local "progressive" committees are to blame
I've observed they quickly get behind candidates who have the most intersectionally "diverse" profile.
She was a three-fer or four-fer.
She would block anyone/everyone on Twitter/X
She had an awful habit of blocking anyone who tagged her in anything, even if it was polite and reasonable. I had an account up until recently and tagged her (can't remember about what) but it was polite. She blocked me. Then everyone else posted their "blocked" screens. Extremely distasteful representation of our state (this list is long, and just gets longer).
What is disappointing to me is that this progressive city and state often acts as though it's "better" than more conservative regions of this country, but the track record here is not better, I argue it is worse.
Politicians who do this actually turn people on one side of the aisle, to the other, when they behave like this.
Give the ACLU a holler
I think I read once that it's unconstitutional for a pol to block a constituent.
Idk. The Electoral College
Idk. The Electoral College makes me sleep better at times.
Just Another Day
Business as usual for Councilors of this district. Despite being an immigrant she quickly assimilated to the ways of a District 7 Councilor. The spirit of Chuck flows deep.
This one is particularly egregious and dumb even for a Councilor. You would think she would want to avoid prison unlike her husband who is incarcerated for 1st degree murder.
Next in line...
Ole Chuck got 3 years in the clink
For $1,000. She took $7k on city property, lied and again hired a family member, for what looks like the sole purpose of committing this scheme.
Tania is $&#%ed.
Bye Felicia.
well inflation.
well inflation.
Given that Staff Member A was
Given that Staff Member A was not charged with anything, it seems likely that this person flipped on her.
Always wondered why City Hall
Always wondered why City Hall has those Staff Bathrooms. Now we know.
Equity & Inclusion
In an effort to treat all fairly, City Hall will soon be installing Bribery & Kickback Stalls.
How is this even possible?
How is it possible for city councilors to unilaterally hire city employees, set their salaries, and give out bonuses? Even apart from this indictment, that's ripe for corruption and should be prohibited.
There's going to be some "shame, shame" words from the council and the Mayor but it would be better to just immediately close that loophole.
how is it that there are bonuses at all?
the argument is always that we need to pay more to compete for "talent" with the private sector. Go work in the private sector and see what real accountability and productivity look like.
There's going to be some shame"
How is it possible for city councilors to unilaterally hire city employees, set their salaries, and give out bonuses?
Same way
They can vote in their own annual raises or how the state legislator can completely disregard a state vote.
Councilors hire their own
Councilors hire their own staff. These employees aren't working for Public Works. They're staffers reporting directly to the councilor to support the councilor's work. This is how it works in any legislative body.
The bonus system is definitely messed up though.
This is on us
We, the people of Boston, have to be better at electing our officials. We have to look at their backgrounds, their qualifications, and their experience in addition to their personalities. AND we need better candidates. At this point, the City Council is such a mess no one in their right mind would WANT that job. Let's elect some smart, well-intentioned people there.
It's not even that
People need to get off their (expletive) and show up.
She obviously took classes from Dianne Wilkerson
On how not to get caught while being corrupt.
Maybe she can get a Pardon?
Large chest there….
Still can’t get over the money she stuffed in her bra. How tacky, put it in a Louis Vuitton purse for Christ sake!
The last time a D7 councilor faced federal charges
It's now Ex-Councilor Turner (he later won a moral victory of sorts when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled the council should have waited until after he was sentenced to eject him).
Expulsion upon sentencing
In Cambridge we had a city councillor (Bill Walsh) who was convicted of bank fraud. He was removed from office (in 1994) upon sentencing - not upon conviction. I believe the presumption here is that even if you have been convicted, you might successfully appeal that conviction.
Sentencing precedes appeal
But I don't think the conviction is considered final/official until after sentencing. To wit, Kenneth Lay (of Enron infamy) was convicted, but died before sentencing, so his conviction ended up being vacated.
Bill Walsh RIP
I spent some time with him. A character. Aside from the bank fraud, Cambridge could use one like him nowadays.
Walsh got pulled down in the same real estate S&L/bank frauding that got the late Joe Timilty.
Timilty wrote the excellent Prison Journal out of his experiences.
Billy, we hardly knew you
Then Billy was on the run and everyone in Cambridge was playing "where's walshy???"
They all knew.
No one on the Council or around City Hall didn't know that Lara and Fernandes were complete dopes who had no clue that their role was anything other than enriching themselves. Look at few endorsed Fernandes in her last race. If anyone other than Roy Owens had been running the other pols would have endorsed as they did against Lara.
This Is Just To Say
I have taken
the $7,000
that was in
the bathroom
and which
I was probably
getting
kicked back
Forgive me
they aren't related
my kin
but not close
- h/t William Carlos Williams
Double thumbs up. I haven’t
Double thumbs up. I haven’t seen that awesome poem for some time.
Campaign funds
Councilor Fernandes Anderson obviously didn't realize the way to -legally- put family members on the payroll is to put them on the -campaign- payroll. Too bad for her, she's now toast. Look at OCPF records and you'll see what I mean. Councilor Erin Murphy, for one, pays thousands of dollars monthly to her mother for campaign 'compliance' work, whatever that means. Same goes for self-enrichment. There's a long history of city and state elected officials using campaign funds to pay for their personal vehicles, for example. Former Councilor Jimmy Kelly (RIP) was well known for this. I'm sure others do now too.
Her son was the campaign treasurer
The same mushwit who messed up the campaign finance reporting, and was illegally hired to work in her office (and received a $20K raise after two weeks).
This is excellent!
This is an excellent way to start the weekend. However, the breaking news is not particularly surprising. It appears to be a case of deception. There are likely more revelations to come from that council. I hope my fellow citizens in the city become more aware
No bail
She was released on personal recognizance (prosecutors did not ask for bail) and was appointed a public defender - although the judge reserved the option of making her pay something toward her defense (as a city councilor, she earns a $103,000 salary).
Her son has to remove a gun he apparently keeps at her house as well.
103K?
Thought it was 115K in 2024 (and 120K in 2025).
Public Defender?
I thought if you were gainfully employed you had to hire your own lawyer?
Probably just for arraignment
Probably just for arraignment.