Violence In Boston Director Clark Grant Faces Unemployment, Mortgage Fraud Charges

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man was charged with illegally obtaining unemployment benefits meant for people who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic, and claiming that the assets of a nonprofit he worked for were his own in a mortgage application, federal prosecutors said.

Clark Grant, 38, of Taunton, was released without bail after an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Boston on Tuesday on charges of wire fraud and making false statements on a loan application. He did not enter pleas.

An email requesting comment was sent to Grant's federal public defender.

Grant, from from about May 2020 until last month, applied for and obtained nearly $68,000 federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance funds while at the same time working and collecting a roughly $70,000-per-year salary at his full-time job, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office in Boston.

In a separate case, Grant applied for a mortgage in May to purchase a home for about $410,000, prosecutors said.

Grant listed the nonprofit's bank account on the application as a personal asset, according to a federal affidavit.

"This account, however, did not belong and has never belonged to Grant," a federal agent wrote in the affidavit. "I believe that, as a director of the nonprofit, Grant was aware that he could not claim the nonprofit's funds as his personal assets."

The document did not name the nonprofit, but according to state records, Grant is the director of Violence in Boston, founded in 2017 to provide support for victims of violence.

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