Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called for the resignation of City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson on Friday, hours after the councilor was arrested on federal corruption charges.
Fernandes Anderson is accused of receiving kickbacks from a family member she hired for her council staff. She paid the person a substantial bonus last year but arranged for a portion of the money to return to her own pocket, according to an indictment unsealed Friday morning.
In June of last year, prosecutors claim, the family member upheld their side of the deal, passing Fernandes Anderson $7,000 cash in a Boston City Hall bathroom.
Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson speaks during a Boston City Council meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (Tréa Lavery/MassLive)Tréa Lavery/MassLive
In a statement Friday morning, Wu urged the second-term Democratic councilor to step away from her job.
“Like any member of the community, Councilor Fernandes Anderson has the right to a fair legal process,” Wu said. “But the serious nature of these charges undermine the public trust and will prevent her from effectively serving the city.”
As the District 7 city councilor, Fernandes Anderson represents parts of the neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, the South End and Fenway.
She was arrested outside her Dorchester home around 6 a.m. Friday and is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court at 2:15 p.m.
She is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud and a single count of aiding and abetting theft concerning a program receiving federal funds, according to the indictment.
Fernandes Anderson declined to comment earlier this week as news reports circulated that she was under federal investigation.
“My job is show up and to fight for you,” she wrote to supporters in a post on Instagram. And I will continue to do just that; the people’s work.”
Federal authorities did not name the family member involved in the alleged scheme but said they were not an immediate family member.
Councilors are barred from hiring their immediate family — a rule Fernandes Anderson ran afoul of in 2022 when she appointed her sister as director of constituent services and her son as an office manager.
Her sister’s initial salary of $65,000 was later bumped to $70,000 with a $7,000 bonus in June 2022. Her son’s pay, initially $52,000, jumped eleven days after his hiring to $70,000.
Under fire for the ethics violations, Fernandes Anderson was forced to fire the pair. In July 2023, the Massachusetts Ethics Commission slapped her with a $5,000 civil penalty.
The indictment describes a period of financial difficulty for the councilor in early 2023 as the fine loomed, piling up alongside missed rent and car payments and bank overdraft fees.
It was around that period that Fernandes Anderson awarded a $13,000 bonus to the unnamed family member, whom she had hired in late 2022.
In an email to a city employee, the councilor maintained that they had no relation, federal authorities said.
The person’s bonus, which had to be approved by the city council, was more than double the bonuses paid to the rest of her staff combined. Fernandes Anderson told her staff the larger bonus was for the person’s earlier volunteer work, according to the indictment.
Over the two weeks after the family member received the bonus, the person withdrew thousands of dollars at three separate Boston bank locations.
With money in hand, the family member arranged to meet Fernandes Anderson in a City Hall bathroom, prosecutors said. There, out of view, the cash exchanged hands.
U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua Levy, whose office is prosecuting the case, described the bonus Fernandes Anderson paid to the staff member as a bribe to ensure they cooperated with the kickback scheme.
The notion of an illegal cash transfer inside a City Hall bathroom only “adds to the egregiousness” of the accusations, Levy said.
Stephen Kelleher, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI Boston division, said Fernandes Anderson enriched herself while pretending her motivations were civic-minded.
“The behavior we allege in today’s indictment is a slap in the face of the hard-working taxpayers in the city of Boston,” he said. “Nobody is picking on Tania Fernandez Anderson and her inner circle. We believe this is a situation of our own making.”
No one else has been charged in connection with the investigation, Levy said. But he declined to say if charges against others involved in the scheme could follow.
Fellow Councilor John FitzGerald called the situation “profoundly concerning,” but said he believed it was “important to allow the legal process to unfold and give Councilor Fernandes Anderson the opportunity to address these serious charges.”
Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon declined to comment. Other councilors did not respond to questions from MassLive.
Friday’s indictment came just weeks after Fernandes Anderson was cited for multiple campaign finance violations stemming from what state regulators called a “routine analysis” of campaign finance reports from November 2023 to September 2024.
The state Office of Campaign and Political Finance found she failed to promptly disclose $32,900 of the $34,500 that was deposited into her campaign account during that period.
The office required her to pay a $1,750 fine. She was also ordered to return $100 in excess contributions from another candidate’s committee.
Fernandes Anderson is the first Muslim, first formerly undocumented immigrant and first African immigrant to serve on the city council. She won reelection in 2023 with more than 70% of the vote in her district.
At 10 years old, Fernandes Anderson moved from Cape Verde to Roxbury, according to her biography on the council website. Those two places “formed the foundation of her unwavering commitment to the community.”
Before her election to public office, Fernandes Anderson worked as the executive director of Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets, as a parent advocate in the Boston Public Schools and as program manager for a shelter for homeless women.
She is a mother of two biological children and served as foster mother for 17 kids.
Among her priorities on the council, the biography reads, is to ensure “Municipal Government is actively working for the people of Boston.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.