‘B-S,’ ‘Seems petty’: Rachael Rollins unloads on feds for indicting Boston city councilor

Disgraced former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins criticized the feds for their “petty” and “de minimus” indictment of Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson over $7,000 while accusing her ex-employer of going harder after people of color.

Rollins, who resigned from her post as the state’s top prosecutor last year ahead of the release of two damning reports, didn’t mince words when dismissing the “tenuous” elements that made the alleged bonus kickback scheme a federal crime — in an online forum hosted last Friday by City Councilor Julia Mejia.

“Do you see what bulls- -t this is?” Rollins said. “Excuse my language. Like, this isn’t Rachael Rollins was running drugs from Massachusetts to Rhode Island and New Hampshire, human trafficking people down from Maine all the way down to the coast or whatever. It seems petty, right … and for $7,000.”

Rollins laid out three elements that she said made the “financial crime” a federal one: a text between Fernandes Anderson and the staffer coordinating the bonus kickback traveling via interstate wire communications, the involved City of Boston-issued check being deposited and withdrawn at a Rhode Island-based bank, and the city’s receipt of more than $10,000 in federal grant money that year, 2023.

Fernandes Anderson is alleged to have pocketed $7,000 of a $13,000 bonus she doled out to a relative, but not direct family member, who was on her Council staff, with the handoff taking place between the councilor and employee in a City Hall bathroom in June 2023, according to the indictment.

“We can find a federal nexus for anything we want,” Rollins said, while going on to bash the U.S. Attorney’s office for, by comparison, taking a pass on charging “wealthy white men” or the so-called powerful johns involved in a sex-trade case.

“Remember Julia, when all of those wealthy white men were found getting sexual favors from human traffickers and the U.S. Attorney’s office didn’t want to charge them federally and kicked it down to the state so all their names weren’t made public?” Rollins said. “They don’t want to find federal nexuses when it’s people that look and live like them.”

Fernandes Anderson, a Cape Verdean woman, was the first African immigrant, Muslim-American, and formerly undocumented person elected to the City Council in late 2021, and was described as having personal financial difficulty by the feds at the time of the alleged kickback.

Mejia also weighed in, saying that the allegations seemed “targeted.”

Rollins went on to state, “What I used to say when I was U.S. Attorney is, you know what? Let’s use the same zeal and excitement that we do for black and brown 19-year-old men in Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Lawrence and Lowell, right, and Holyoke, when we think creatively about how we are going to indict white nationalists or people that are human trafficking or receiving the benefit of people who have been trafficked or harmed.”

“So again, I think this is de minimus,” Rollins said, using a legal term that is defined as too trivial or minor to merit consideration, especially in law, and later clarifying when asked by Mejia what the word meant, that, “It is minor.”

Mejia then asked whether Rollins was implying that the federal corruption allegations against Fernandes Anderson were “not a big deal,” to which Rollins clarified, “I’m not saying it’s not a big deal. It’s a small amount of money.”

Rollins, who mentioned that her comments were not a reflection of whether she thought Fernandes Anderson was innocent or guilty, said she was speaking to the “threshold” of money that would warrant federal prosecution.

“As the former leader of this office, we are normally not prosecuting regular people for $7,000,” Rollins said.

Rollins also took a dig at U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, saying he wanted her job, lost out and “called and begged to be her No. 2, while referencing his comments at a press conference, where he mentioned the feds’ interest in upholding the public’s faith and trust in elected officials, when asked about the dollar amount by a reporter.

She also cited the last time a Boston city councilor was indicted by the feds while in office, Chuck Turner, a black man, saying the alleged bribe in that instance, was even less, at $1,000. Turner was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to three years in jail.

“They will reach down, and I guarantee you they will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars indicting and charging and prosecuting Councilor Fernandes Anderson over $7,000,” Rollins said.

“I’m not saying nothing should have happened if these allegations are true, but this could have been possibly resolved administratively. They could have said that it should have gone to the state Ethics Commission again, or some other thing like that.”

Fernandes Anderson was hit with a state ethics violation, and fined $5,000 last year, for hiring two family members, her sister and son, to paid positions on her City Council staff, and giving them raises. She also gave her sister a $7,000 bonus.

Harvey Silverglate, a constitutional and civil rights attorney, said that while he wasn’t necessarily surprised by Rollins’ comments, given that it was her, he would have thought she would have better sense.

“First of all, I wouldn’t say $7,000 is a small amount,” Silverglate said. “Second of all, a bribe’s a bribe. The U.S. Attorney has an obligation to go after this. This is an elected official.”

He added, “I would think that Rachael Rollins would have better sense than to criticize a U.S. Attorney for indicting somebody for taking a bribe, especially since she ended up resigning because of her bad judgment.”

Asked whether Rollin’s comments about race playing a factor in the probe and prosecution of Fernandes Anderson represented a reasonable statement, Silverglate said, “No, I don’t.”

“If she was white, if she was yellow, if she was black, she’s a public official taking a bribe,” Silverglate said.

Rollins, who was confirmed as U.S. Attorney following a stint as Suffolk County district attorney that came with its own controversies, resigned her post on May 16, 2023, on the heels of two federal inquiries into ethics violations jumpstarted by a Herald report on a possible Hatch Act violation.

That ethical breach was in July 2022 when Rollins attended a Democratic National Committee fundraiser with First Lady Jill Biden in Andover.

Rollins is now the highest-paid part-time employee at Roxbury Community College, taking in an annual salary of $96,000.