A 41-year-old Jamaica Plain woman, who is a known critic of the charity established after the Boston Marathon bombings to support victims, has been indicted on charges of larceny and making false claims to a government agency, after allegedly defrauding The One Fund.
Joanna Leigh claimed she suffered a brain injury in the April 15, 2013 bombings. She was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury March 10. The One Fund detractor-turned-alleged scam artist reportedly received $40,000 from the victims’ charity and other sources, Jake Wark, a spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, told the Boston Globe.
Leigh’s arraignment has been set for Monday in Suffolk Superior Court. She told the Globe that she will plead not guilty and swears she didn’t fake her injuries.
Established by then-mayor Tom Menino and then-governor Deval Patrick to compensate the victims of the bombings, One Fund Boston has collected and distributed roughly $80 million worth of donations.
Wark said in a statement that Leigh received $8,000 and was looking for upwards of $2 million from The One Fund, but she allegedly refused to turn over medical records as proof of her injuries.
Leigh was among a group of One Fund critics who claimed to not have received as much money as they should have because of how the charity calculated its payouts. She told the Globe she believes the indictment is payback:
I don’t think this is about me; I think this is because I spoke out about The One Fund. I think this is about killing the messenger. I went after the governor and the mayor’s charity, and I didn’t shut up about it, and I caused them trouble.
Wark said investigators who watched the surveillance videos, witness testimony, and medical and financial records confirmed Leigh was at the marathon the day of the attacks, but she wasn’t injured.
Police say Leigh didn’t seek treatment for her injuries until two weeks after the bombings. She claimed to be a “hero” who raced towards the second explosion to help save other victims.
“At a time when most people were asking how they could help, others were wondering how they could benefit,” Suffolk County D.A. Daniel Conley said in a statement from police.
In addition to the $8,000 she received from The One Fund, Leigh reportedly was given $18,000 from the state’s Victims of Violent Crime Compensation fund; $1,700 raised for her by children and faculty at a Mattapan middle school; and $9,000 from a GoFundMe campaign that she apparently created and maintained, Wark said.
Leigh joins a list of people also charged with trying to scam The One Fund.
A Maine woman was arrested in January on charges of receiving $8,000 for false claims. A New York woman who plead guilty last May to scamming $480,000 from the fund was sentenced to three years in prison.
