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Woman who helped kids through sports now faces trial on fraud, kickback charges

Forde

Brianna Forde, 35, a one-time Boston basketball standout who has spent her adult life working with youth sports programs, was one of three people indicted yesterday for an alleged scheme to defraud Bank of America via kickbacks from some of those programs.

Forde was indicted along with Palestine Ace, a Bank of America marketing vice president, and Ace's husband, Jonathan. The feds allege the three funneled donations from the bank's marketing department to charities, then demanded kickbacks in exchange for promises of future donations.

Forde, a Boston native, played for Burke High School, where she was a four-time Boston City All Star and a three-time member of the Globe All-Scholastic Team. In 1999-2000, she led the Bulldogs to a perfect record. She graduated into a full basketball scholarship at Bentley University in Waltham, after which she served as an assistant women's basketball coach at Curry College and UMass Boston and coached the New Mission High School women's team. She also volunteered for a number of Boston-area youth-sports programs.

According to the indictment, between 2010 and 2015, Ace sent a total of $1 million to seven Boston-area charities focusing on "basketball and educational programs for Boston area youth," which the indictment does not name, but which specifies were unaware of the scheme. The indictment continues that Forde first contacted four of the programs and said that as a condition of the donations, they had to give back 50% of the funds to her. Ace's husband made similar demands of the other three, and of charities in Atlanta.

Without their knowledge, Forde then submitted fraudulent invoices - purportedly from the non-profits - to Ace to facilitate the payments to the non-profits and the embezzlement of the funds.

As an example, the indictment alleges that on March 6, 2014, Ace sent $30,000 to "Boston Non-Profit 2," which in turn cut a check to Forde the next day for $15,000. After depositing the check, Forde then withdrew $7,500 in cash, then, on March 25, transferred $7,500 from the account to an unnamed relative of Ace's.

If convicted, Forde faces up to 20 years in federal prison on charges of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud. She would also have to forfeit roughly $119,000 the government says remains in the bank account she allegedly used for transferring the money.

Complete indictment (1.1M PDF).

Innocent, etc.


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Comments

... helped build her character.

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Aaron's character was built on participation in sports, too. So was Michael Vick's. And the list goes on. Look, if they caught Bernie Madoff, they were definitely gonna catch these amateurs.

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ADAM: The "Innocent, etc." simply doesn't work. The norm on UH is for commenters to assume guilt, and commence mocking or condemning a person who has only just been charged. This is bad for our society.

Can you try putting a full sentence, regarding this extremely important principle of US law? Maybe a full sentence that's a clickable link, to a Wikipedia page or something on the principle?

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In addition to writing out of the journalistic handbook (count how man times "alleged" and its variants appear) he puts his quick disclaimer at the end.

Please, direct us to an account of this indictment that notes that the accused must still face a trail before being found guilty (guilty pleas aside).

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Commenters obviously do not, or forget.

"Innocent, etc." isn't working.

And when it's obviously not working, and the anti-American comments are occur consistently, the casual tone of the non-working "reminder" sounds bad, IMHO.

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You're new to the internet.

As the person at this website who reminds people constantly that bail isn't punishment but an attempt to compel attendance at court proceedings, I can tell you that you are tilting at windmills. Adam can explain the exact process of trials and people will still read the story and make up their mind pre-trial.

And yes, since there was an indictment, I think there is a good chance all three of them willingly broke the law.

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Actually, people new to America tend to know the principles. It's the rest of us who need reminding.

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There always a lot a rush to judgement on this blog. Hope these are not supposed to be be elite intelligent and wise thinkers Boston.

Everyone remember: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.

In the court of public opinion, which is not shit; I wish: it appears everything is fair game.

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Would you say Trump is innocent of the charges brought against him since the election?

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allston??

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I wonder if June will chime in again.

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she has a nice smile

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Conman often appear personable and likable.

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thanks professor

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