Boston City Councilwoman Arrested by the FBI for Fraud

Tania Fernandes Anderson, a Democrat on the Boston City Council, was arrested this morning by the FBI.

EXCLUSIVE: 5 Investigates was outside the Dorchester home of Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson when she was arrested early Friday by FBI agents. https://t.co/4CpDmjL3cS
…#Boston #CityCouncil #FBI #Arrest #Dorchester pic.twitter.com/z0Wkdat9MA

— WCVB-TV Boston (@WCVB) December 6, 2024

Anderson has quite a history. She came to America from Africa at age 10 and lived in Roxbury as an illegal immigrant until 2019 when she became a citizen. Two years later she was elected to the City Council though she apparently refused to take the oath of office (That’s her in the back, not speaking.)

Meet Boston Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (@Tania4D7), a radical activist and an immigrant from West Africa. During her swearing in, she refused to repeat the oath and raise her hand. She hates this country and constitution.

She previously offered resolutions for 9/23 to be… pic.twitter.com/bvQJFKWN5s

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 3, 2024

As mentioned in that tweet, her husband Tanzerious Anderson is currently in prison for murder.

Tanzerious Anderson, the city councilor’s husband, is in jail for murder in the first degree, armed robbery and illegal possession of a firearm. He was found guilty as a principal and joint venturer in the crimes.

According to court documents, on March 25, 2000, Anderson and 16-year-old Joleena Tate broke into a condominium in North Conway, New Hampshire, that belonged to Tate’s father. They stole firearms and ammunition, including a .357 Magnum revolver…

The victim took Tate out to dinner, and then Tate requested that he drive her to the designated building. When Anderson and Robinson showed up, Tate said to the victim, “We’re being robbed,” and then walked to a nearby playground.

A few minutes later, Tate heard “a very loud noise,” and when she met up with her accomplices, Anderson said “He’s murked (dead)” and that “I got my body for the summer.”

This video of Anderson from 2022 is currently circulating. I have no idea what she’s shouting about here but it gives you an idea how her identity politics is central to what she does.

This radical leftist and former illegal alien Boston City Council member Tania Fernandes Anderson has been arrested by the FBI

She’s facing wire fraud and theft

She hired relatives to work at city hall and then jacked up their salaries

Politics is a grift for the left pic.twitter.com/unnmI3vnF3

— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) December 6, 2024

What got Anderson arrested this morning was an alleged kickback scheme she arranged with a relative who worked in her office.

Fernandes Anderson…is alleged to have pocketed $7,000 from a $13,000 bonus she doled out to a relative, but “not an immediate family member” she had hired in late 2022 as a paid member of her Council staff, according to the indictment.

The handoff was coordinated by text between Fernandes Anderson and the relative, identified as “Staff Member A” which carried via interstate wire communications, and made in a City Hall bathroom in June 2023, according to the indictment.

Fernandes Anderson had “falsely told her staff that ‘Staff Member A’ would be getting a larger bonus than her other staff members” — more than twice as large as the total amount of all bonus payments to Fernandes Anderson’s other staff combined” — due to Staff Member A’s “prior volunteer work.”

The best part of this story is that Anderson apparently arranged the kickback because she was having money problems in 2023. One cause of those money problems was a $5,000 fine from the state Ethics Commission she received for…hiring her immediate family members.

Last year, Fernandes Anderson admitted to an ethics violation and agreed to pay a $5,000 fine for hiring and then giving raises to her sister and son, according to the state ethics commission. She acknowledged she hired her sister as director of constituent services at an annual salary of $65,000 in January 2022, and then gave her a $5,000 raise and a $7,000 bonusa few months later, according to the agreement.

In June of that year, Fernandes Anderson also hired her son as an office manager at $52,000 a year. She increased her son’s pay to $70,000 nearly two weeks later.

So her hiring of relatives generated a fine which she tried to remedy by setting up a kickback to another relative who also worked for her. The Mayor of Boston has called on her to resign.

Earlier this week, Fernandes Anderson said she was “not thinking about quitting. I’m not thinking about stepping down.”

After the arrest, Mayor Michelle Wu said Fernandes Anderson has a “right to a fair legal process,” but urged the councilor to step down.

“The serious nature of these charges undermine the public trust and will prevent her from effectively serving the city,” Wu said in a statement. “I urge Councilor Fernandes Anderson to resign.”

Here’s the press briefing by the US Attorney handling the case.