FOR MONICA CANNON-GRANT, the limelight has proved to be a decidedly double-edged sword.

The long-time Black Boston activist rocketed to prominence amid the country’s racial reckoning of recent years. It was less than two years ago, in June 2020, that she led a massive march of thousands to Franklin Park to protest police violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  

That year, she was named a “Bostonian of the year” by the Boston Globe and named the city’s best “social justice advocate” by Boston Magazine. Today, she was arrested and named in an 18-count federal indictment alleging that she misused grants and donations to the nonprofit she founded, with the feds charging that money went for everything from financing her home mortgage to buying a relative a car.

Cannon-Grant was arrested at her Taunton home this morning. Her husband, Clark Grant, is also charged in the indictment. (Last October, Grant was separately indicted on federal charges of mortgage fraud and making fraudulent claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.) 

The nonprofit she founded, Violence in Boston Inc., rode the prominent recognition of recent years to fast growth. The Globe reported last week that the organization, which started with $1,000 in 2017, now has a 4,000-square-foot headquarters in Hyde Park. It quoted Cannon-Grant speaking last week on a Web radio show calling it a “multimillion-dollar organization.” 

Among its activities, the organization ran a food pantry for needy families.

Cannon-Grant’s attorney, Robert Goldstein, suggested the indictment is a rush to judgment.

“VIB and Monica have been fully cooperating and their production of records remains ongoing,” Goldstein said in a statement, according to the Globe. “Drawing conclusions from an incomplete factual record does not represent the fair and fully informed process a citizen deserves from its government, especially someone like Monica who has worked tirelessly on behalf of her community. We remain fully confident Monica will be vindicated when a complete factual record emerges.”

Violence in Boston obtained grants to support its work from a variety of private and public sources, including the city of Boston and the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. 

But now Cannon-Grant stands accused of diverting those funds and using them on a long list of personal expenses, including hotel reservations, groceries, car rentals, nail salons, and personal travel. The indictment also now charges Cannon-Grant with mortgage fraud and fraudulently seeking Pandemic Unemployment Assistance – charges that her husband first faced in an October indictment. 

Cannon-Grant has been no stranger to controversy. She led protests in Hopkinton alleging that Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan was mishandling the investigation into the death of Mikayla Miller, a 16-year-old Black resident of the town. Cannon-Grant called for Ryan to be removed from oversight into the case, which has been ruled a suicide. She also went on an expletive-filled rant in a video social media post against a Black Republican woman who was challenging US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, filled with explicit comments about the woman having sex with her white husband. 

After the Globe reported last week that Cannon-Grant was under federal investigation, she took to Twitter, calling it a “hit piece” filled with mistruths from a paper that had once lauded her work. 

MICHAEL JONAS

FROM COMMONWEALTH

Fixing childcare: A legislative commission puts a price tag of $1.5 billion on fixing the state’s childcare system by expanding subsidies for parents and making investments in  childcare centers and their workers. The report does not call for universal public pre-kindergarten. Read more.

Bus electrification: Senate seeks a fixed date for bus electrification, but MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak says the authority will need more money to speed things up. Read more.

OPINION

Diversity in teacher ranks: Nikki Barnes of KIPP Massachusetts and Beth Anderson of the Phoenix Charter Academy Network say students need more diverse teachers. Today about 44 percent of students in Massachusetts identify as people of color, yet only 9 percent of teachers are people of color. Read more.

FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Package stores are urging lawmakers to avoid a ballot fight by allowing additional wine and beer sales in convenience stores. (Salem News)

Senate President Karen Spilka participates in a virtual White House briefing where she pledges to fight for President Biden’s agenda, particularly on mental health reform. (MassLive)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

Lawyers for Civil Rights says two Hispanics who work in the school department should be allowed to take their seats on the Holyoke city council because a rule barring city employees from serving as city councilors is at odds with other ordinances. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Several progressive members of the Boston city council express concerns about Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposed ordinance barring protests outside someone’s residence before 9 am or after 9 pm. (Boston Herald) 

After Worcester’s chief diversity officer leaves, the city’s diversity committee says it will suspend its work until it gets more support from city leaders. (Telegram & Gazette)

Worcester schools could be forced to repay the federal government $1.4 million in aid the district was given to help students displaced by Hurricanes Maria and Irma after an audit found it was misspent and mismanaged. (Telegram & Gazette)

US Rep. Richard Neal asks OSHA and the EPA to investigate conditions at the Roderick Ireland Courthouse in Springfield, where environmental conditions have been blamed for myriad health problems. (MassLive)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

A Washington Post reporter went to the front lines to see how outgunned Ukrainian fighters are holding off the Russian army’s advance on Ukrainian cities. “The Russians were not ready for unconventional warfare,” a Russian defense expert at a US think tank explains. “They are not sure how to deal with this insurgency, guerilla-warfare-type situation.”

ELECTIONS

Maura Healey has lots of support in the race for governor, but has offered few specifics about what she would do in office. (Boston Globe) 

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

A Vermont startup is making it possible to bring smell to virtual reality. (Vermont Public Radio)

Food pantries see surging demand amid rising prices for food and fuel. (Gloucester Daily Times)

TRANSPORTATION

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s push for fare-free MBTA service gets some national attention from the Washington Post, which calls her the “highest-profile evangelist” for an idea that’s gaining adherents across the country.  

While other regional transit agencies are going fare free, the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority is proposing to pare back service. Some of the cuts are due to budget timing at the state level. (Berkshire Eagle)

A woman is struck and killed in Natick by a commuter rail train on the Worcester line. Officials suspect the woman committed suicide. (MetroWest Daily News)

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

The US Environmental Protection Agency designates the lower Neponset River a federal Superfund site for cleanup. The river runs through Milton and Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Dorchester in Boston. (WBUR)

MEDIA

Viewers of Russia’s most-watched state-run television news program got a message that was hardly state sanctioned, as a woman who worked at the channel stormed onto the set during a live broadcast yelling “Stop the war!” and stood behind the anchor with a sign reading “They’re lying to you here.” (New York Times)