A federal grand jury is currently investigating the relationship between a Connecticut state lawmaker and a Hartford non-profit director — and how grants may have been awarded to the non-profit she ran because of their relationship. How has it impacted the programs that were supposed to benefit from grant money?
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Andrew Brown to discuss his article written with Dave Altimari, “How McCrory probe derailed a program to help Hartford businesses,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Andrew and Dave’s story here.
WSHU: Hello, Andy. Last August, Hartford City officials halted a state-funded economic development program to help small minority owned businesses in the north end of the city. You say that's what prompted you to investigate this story. So let's start with state senator Doug McCrory. Why is he under FBI scrutiny?
AB: Doug McCrory, who is a longtime state representative and now state senator, is under investigation, according to what is being requested from the FBI, because the FBI is concerned about his relationship with several nonprofits in the north end of Hartford. In particular, a nonprofit called SHEBA, which is run by a woman named Sonserae Cicero, who the FBI is scrutinizing because she may have a potential personal relationship with the senator. All of this has been coming out in the past half a year, since last August, whenever it became public knowledge that a federal grand jury was investigating Senator McCrory, as well as several nonprofits in Hartford. And since then, we've at the Connecticut Mirror, my colleague and I, Dave Altimari, have been trying to stitch together and explain to readers why the FBI is so interested in that relationship.
WSHU: Now let's talk a little bit about where the money came from. Let's start from there. It was ARPA money, which is the American Rescue Plan Act money, which was the COVID relief money. States were given a certain amount of money to try and help businesses get through the COVID era. And that's where this money originated, right?
AB: That's correct.
WSHU: And basically, some of that money went to Hartford and McCrory had a hand in that money, and where that money went, he and the speaker, who were both from Hartford, played a role in that. Could you tell us a little bit more about how that evolved? Sure.
AB: So during the pandemic, as you said, the state of Connecticut received hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, not only to spend on small businesses, but they could spend it on, you know, healthcare needs, essentially any type of damage being done by COVID. Lawmakers had the ability to spend this new source of federal money, which, you know, was rivaling in some cases, you know, the size of the state budget. We're looking at a huge pot of money here. And so lawmakers, including Senator Doug McCrory, during the 2022 legislative session, essentially had the ability to divvy up that money and decide how it was going to be spent. What we found is that Senator McCrory, along with Speaker Matt Ritter, initially intended to give $2 million to a group that's known as the Upper Albany Main Street Association. They're essentially a merchants or business association located in the north end of Hartford. But what happened was, is that shortly after the money was dedicated by the legislature, there was a change in plans of who was going to receive the money, and all of a sudden, SHEBA, the nonprofit run by Sonserae Cicero, who was under federal investigation as well, was named as a sub-recipient. She was supposed to receive $300,000. What we found in the records was that there was a back and forth for nearly a year over how or whether the state was going to allow SHEBA to receive part of that federal money. When the money wasn't spent by 2024, the legislature took the money back. Instead of giving it to a state agency to spend, they gave it to the city of Hartford. And what came about was the same exact plan that was being discussed in the state government, which was that the Upper Albany Main Street Association would receive a portion of the money, roughly $475,000 would be dedicated to SHEBA, and the rest would go to essentially grants for small businesses along Albany Avenue.
WSHU: Those were the $15,000 grants, right?
AB: That's correct. That's correct.
WSHU: But it seemed as if, because of the delay, the upper Albany Main Street organization tried to find out what was going on. And it seems as if the money was pulled because there was concern that there might be some double-dipping. Could you just explain that?
AB: Sure, so that is what the staff at DEC was concerned about, according to the emails with that we obtained back in 2023, when they saw that SHEBA was being considered for a portion of the money, they made note that Sonserae Cicero’s nonprofit was already being paid for what they said was the exact same work through another state funded program, which Senator McCrory also helped to essentially authorize. And at that point, they became concerned that Sonserae Cicero and her nonprofit would be paid twice for essentially performing similar or the exact same services through two different programs or two government-funded programs. And there was a lot of back and forth about whether or not that was appropriate, or whether people would come to question why she was receiving so much taxpayer money for essentially performing the same services for the state.
WSHU: Wow. And so basically, that is why this money has not been spent. It's gone through two different processes: the initial process, and then it was handed over to the city of Hartford, and they came up with almost the same plan. And so it's, it's not going forward. So what are the small businesses saying? I mean, what? What's the position right now? Because quite a number of small businesses in the Upper Albany area were supposed to get $15,000 and had applied for the $15,000 and were expecting the $15,000 grants.
AB: Yeah. So, you know, again, these businesses applied. Many of them went through, I think there's maybe a handful, six or so that went through the entire program of receiving training, both computer-type training through the Upper Albany Main Street Association, and they received Small Business Training according to the city through SHEBA. They are now waiting. They were not told prior to us calling them that the program was essentially paused. So they are waiting, and kind of waiting, you know, with bated breath, waiting to see if they will get the $15,000 grants that they were promised. What the city has told us is that the entire Small Business Training Program is on hold now because of the in federal, federal investigation, out of an abundance of caution, and they have sent essentially the invoices that SHEBA charged to the city for the work that she performed, and they sent it back to the state for essentially for review. So what this has resulted in is that a federal investigation into a state senator and a nonprofit that he was deeply involved in has essentially disrupted and brought a hold to what many businesses in Upper Albany were looking forward to, which was some financial assistance to either start their business or to continue growing.
WSHU: Could you just briefly describe the businesses in that area, and you know how they generally are faring and why they would have needed this assistance?
AB: Yeah, Upper Albany in Hartford is a predominantly black community. It's one of the lowest-income zip codes in the state, which is why the money was dedicated there in the first place. It was the hope that the small business owners would be, you know, boosted post-pandemic and continue to survive or maybe grow new businesses there. You know, it's a small corridor, it's some foot traffic, but it is a lower-income community, which is why so much emphasis was placed on it to begin with.
WSHU: Wow. And right now, they're on hold until the investigation is over, and we don't know how long that will take.
AB: That's correct.
