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

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.