Ex-Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson heads to prison Friday after corruption conviction
Published in News & Features
Former Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who was convicted in the spring on federal corruption charges tied to a City Hall kickback scheme, will report to the Bureau of Prisons Friday to begin her monthlong jail sentence.
Fernandes Anderson, 46, “will be reporting to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons” to “serve her sentence,” per a Thursday federal court filing. The Bureau did not immediately respond to a Herald inquiry about which prison she will reside at.
The ex-Roxbury-centric city councilor has requested that her passport be returned to her possession, by way of it being transferred from her probation officer to her attorney, at that time. Prosecutors have agreed to that and a related request that she no longer be subject to pre-trial conditions of release, the court filing states.
Fernandes Anderson was sentenced to a month in prison, three years of probation and was ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution early last month.
“I feel disgusted, like I can’t forgive myself,” Fernandes Anderson said at her Sept. 5 sentencing hearing in federal court.
Last month’s sentencing hearing followed Fernandes Anderson’s conviction on federal corruption charges in May.
The ex-councilor pleaded guilty on May 5 to two of six charges — one count of wire fraud and one count of theft concerning a federal program — that had been lodged against her in a December 2024 federal indictment.
Fernandes Anderson accepted a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in April, with a recommendation from prosecutors that she be sentenced to a year and a day in prison and ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution. Four of the charges she was indicted on were dropped as part of the plea deal.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani opted to impose a lighter sentence, citing sentencing guidelines that called for zero to six months based on Fernandes Anderson’s lack of a criminal record. Her attorney had sought only probation.
“It’s serious,” Talwani said at the sentencing hearing. “Maybe it was low-hanging fruit because you thought you could get away with it, but it is a breach of the trust we put in public officials.”
Fernandes Anderson was convicted on charges tied to allegations made by the federal government that she gave one of her staff members, a relative but not immediate family member, a $13,000 bonus on the condition that $7,000 be kicked back to her. The handoff was coordinated by text and took place in a City Hall bathroom in June 2023, prosecutors said.
The federal indictment mentions that Fernandes Anderson may have been motivated, in part, by the “personal financial difficulty” she was facing at the time. Fernandes Anderson was staring down an impending $5,000 fine for a state ethics violation around that time period, for hiring two immediate family members to her City Council staff, giving them raises, and in the case of her sister, a bonus.
Fernandes Anderson was paid a $120,000 salary as a city councilor. She defied calls to resign for more than six months after she was arrested and indicted by federal authorities last December.
The progressive Democrat resigned from the City Council on July 4, two months after her conviction and a year and half into her second, two-year term.
Fernandes Anderson was the first Muslim-American, African immigrant and formerly undocumented person to be elected to the City Council.
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