Boston Metropolis Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson was practically $20,000 in debt in 2023, the identical 12 months that she pocketed a $7,000 kickback in a Metropolis Corridor rest room that just lately resulted in her federal corruption conviction, public data present.
Fernandes Anderson owed $19,000 of a $35,000 mortgage from what gave the impression to be a scholar mortgage supplier on the time, based on a monetary disclosure assertion she filed with town clerk final 12 months and which lined the 12 months of 2023.
Her “debt, loan or liability” is seemingly listed as being to Naviance, which describes itself as an American faculty and profession readiness software program, though the handwritten title of that debt supplier was misspelled by the councilor.
How a lot, if any, of the debt Fernandes Anderson nonetheless owes is unclear, as monetary disclosure varieties masking final 12 months will not be due till Might 30, based on Metropolis Clerk Alex Geourntas.
On her 2023 calendar 12 months type, Fernandes Anderson wrote that she was below a “deferring” fee plan for the mortgage. Her type lists no property.
The mortgage doesn’t seem on her monetary disclosure assertion for the 2022 calendar 12 months, which might have been filed in late Might 2023. She checked off the “not applicable” field below the debt, mortgage or legal responsibility part.
Fernandes Anderson graduated from the John D. O’Bryant Excessive Faculty of Arithmetic and Science in Roxbury, and attended Springfield Faculty.
At her Might 5 plea listening to in Boston federal courtroom, the place she pleaded responsible to 2 federal corruption fees, Fernandes Anderson stated her training degree was “some college,” in response to a sequence of questions from the decide.
In her Council biography, she additionally describes herself because the “proud mother of a U.S. Marine and a young emerging artist.”
Fernandes Anderson was the primary Muslim, African immigrant, and previously undocumented individual to be elected as a metropolis councilor.
She grew to become a naturalized citizen in 2019, was first elected to the Metropolis Council in November 2021, and took workplace in January 2022.
Fernandes Anderson was federally indicted and arrested final December on six fees, 4 of which have been dropped as a part of a plea deal she accepted with the U.S. Lawyer’s workplace.
The indictment states that Fernandes Anderson carried out a kickback scheme within the spring of 2023. The councilor doled out a $13,000 bonus to one in every of her workers members, a relative however not quick member of the family, on the situation that $7,000 be kicked again to her.
The money handoff was coordinated by textual content message and passed off in a Metropolis Corridor rest room in June 2023, the indictment states.
Upon her arrest and indictment, prosecutors stated the kickback scheme could have been motivated, partially, by the “personal financial difficulty” Fernandes Anderson is believed to have been dealing with in early- to mid-2023.
That included lacking month-to-month hire and automotive funds, an impending $5,000 high quality from the state Ethics Fee linked to the councilor hiring two quick members of the family and giving them raises, and incurring financial institution overdraft charges from sustaining low day by day financial institution balances, courtroom data present.
Fernandes Anderson, who represents Roxbury-centric District 7, was being paid a $103,500 wage within the 2023 kickback 12 months. She is now paid $120,000, after councilors noticed their pay hiked for a second straight 12 months this previous January.
The councilor has stated she plans to formally resign after the Metropolis Council price range course of, which usually wraps up in late June with a vote. She advised reporters exterior the federal courthouse after her conviction that she opted to remain on till that point as a result of the residents of District 7 ought to have a price range vote.
Fernandes Anderson has been absent from the final two weeks’ Metropolis Council conferences. She cited a family-related medical emergency in two absence letters that have been filed with town clerk and browse into the document on the finish of every assembly.
Her sentencing has been scheduled for July 29. As a part of the plea deal, U.S. Lawyer Leah Foley beneficial that Fernandes Anderson be sentenced to a 12 months and a day in jail, and ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution.
A federal decide, at Fernandes Anderson’s plea listening to, warned the councilor that she was not obligated to heed the prosecution’s beneficial sentencing, and will select to impose a harsher punishment.
