Disgraced ex-Boston Metropolis Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson is serving her monthlong jail sentence following her corruption conviction for pocketing a $7,000 kickback at a low-security federal jail in Danbury, Connecticut.
Fernandes Anderson, 46, is one among 1,256 inmates behind bars on the Federal Correctional Establishment, Danbury, a co-ed facility that features an adjoining minimal safety satellite tv for pc camp, per the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Of the 1,256 whole inmates, 1,137 are housed on the correctional facility whereas the remaining 119 are on the camp. The Bureau of Prisons doesn’t differentiate between the place Fernandes Anderson is housed at FCI Danbury.
Steve Bannon, an ally of President Donald Trump, served a four-month jail sentence at FCI Danbury following his conviction for contempt of Congress in reference to the January sixth investigation. He was launched in October 2024.
Different notable former prisoners at FCI Danbury embrace Grammy award-winning singer and actress Lauryn Hill, the late billionaire businesswoman Leona Helmsley, actuality star of the “Real Housewives” franchise Teresa Giudice, and creator Piper Kerman, whose memoir impressed the hit Netflix sequence “Orange is the New Black.”
Danbury is a metropolis in Fairfield County, Connecticut, situated roughly 50 miles northeast of New York Metropolis. Fairfield is the wealthiest county in Connecticut.
Fernandes Anderson was convicted within the spring on federal corruption prices tied to a Metropolis Corridor kickback scheme. She reported to the Federal Bureau of Prisons final Friday, however her placement at FCI Danbury was not revealed till Tuesday.
The ex-Roxbury-centric metropolis councilor was sentenced to a month in jail, three years of probation and was ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution early final month. Her launch date is Nov. 15, in accordance with the Bureau of Prisons.
Fernandes Anderson pleaded responsible on Could 5 to 2 of six prices — one rely of wire fraud and one rely of theft regarding a federal program — that had been lodged towards her in a December 2024 federal indictment.
She accepted a plea settlement with the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace in April, with a suggestion from prosecutors that she be sentenced to a yr and a day in jail and ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution. 4 of the costs the ex-councilor was indicted on had been dropped as a part of the plea deal.
U.S. District Court docket Decide Indira Talwani opted to impose a lighter sentence, citing sentencing tips that known as for zero to 6 months primarily based on Fernandes Anderson’s lack of a legal document. Her lawyer had sought solely probation.
Fernandes Anderson was convicted on prices tied to allegations made by the federal authorities that she gave one among her workers members, a relative however not instant member of the family, a $13,000 bonus on the situation that $7,000 be kicked again to her. The handoff was coordinated by textual content and came about in a Metropolis Corridor toilet in June 2023, prosecutors mentioned.
The federal indictment mentions that Fernandes Anderson could have been motivated, partially, by the “personal financial difficulty” she was going through on the time. Fernandes Anderson was staring down an impending $5,000 fantastic for a state ethics violation round that point interval, for hiring two instant relations to her Metropolis Council workers, giving them raises, and within the case of her sister, a bonus.
Fernandes Anderson was paid a $120,000 wage as a metropolis councilor. She defied calls to resign for greater than six months after she was arrested and indicted by federal authorities final December.
The progressive Democrat resigned from the Metropolis Council on July 4, two months after her conviction and a yr and half into her second, two-year time period.
Fernandes Anderson was the primary Muslim-American, African immigrant and previously undocumented particular person to be elected to the Metropolis Council.
