BOSTON — Disgraced Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson brushed off most media, instead selecting two of her preferred outlets for remarks, on her first day back at City Hall after accepting a plea deal in a federal public corruption case.

The favoritism started on Tuesday when Fernandes Anderson released a statement exclusively to Boston Magazine stating that she would be resigning from the City Council, after federal prosecutors filed documents stating that she would be pleading guilty to two corruption charges and laying out the terms of the plea deal.

It wasn’t until hours later that Fernandes Anderson’s attorney began providing the same canned statement from the councilor to other media outlets, upon request.

Until outlets, including the Herald, could obtain the statement independently, they were bound ethically to attribute Fernandes Anderson’s statement as being reported by Boston Magazine, which was recently purchased by Boston Globe Media.

The same games continued Wednesday when reporters camped out at City Hall began to seek comment from Fernandes Anderson after she showed up roughly half an hour late to the weekly City Council meeting.

Rather than taking questions from all outlets, Fernandes Anderson chose to take a reporter and camera operator from NBC10 into her City Council office, while telling WCVB-TV political reporter Sharman Sachetti, who was waiting with the NBC10 crew, that she would not be speaking with her station.

WCVB-TV was the only news outlet on scene for Fernandes Anderson’s early-morning arrest on six public corruption charges last December. The station filmed the councilor as she was being arrested outside her Dorchester home, and the footage quickly went viral on social media.

Fernandes Anderson, according to the NBC10 reporter, would not answer questions about the case but spoke about her decision to attend the City Council meeting, after the terms of her plea agreement and plans to plead guilty were released by the feds and she announced her intention to resign.

During the meeting, when Fernandes Anderson stepped out of the Council chamber to take a break in her office, she was again approached by a scrum of reporters, this time from many more outlets, and refused again to take questions, after doing the earlier interview.

Fernandes Anderson ignored questions, including one about when she would be resigning. Then 10 minutes later while still on break from the ongoing meeting, she went up to the waiting reporters and said that she would take questions from the media after the Council meeting.

“I’ll be back after the meeting,” Fernandes Anderson said shortly before 2 p.m.. “I really have to go to the meeting, but I’ll be happy to meet with you after … I really want to be more thoughtful about my responses.”

During that time, Fernandes Anderson was asked again when she would be resigning from the Council and was also asked about what emotions she was feeling after the plea deal was announced a day earlier.

Reporters emphasized that they had deadlines to meet, and continued to pitch questions to the councilor, who insisted that she had to get back to a meeting that she showed up late to and was, at that moment, on a break from attending.

The meeting went on for about another hour. At about 3 p.m., Fernandes Anderson went up to reporters gathered outside the City Council offices, where she had promised to take their questions, and asked which outlets were there.

Reporters from the Herald, Globe, Boston 25 News, CBS Boston, and WCVB-TV said they were present.

Fernandes Anderson then called out the Globe reporter by name, said she would call her later, and told the rest of the waiting media that she had no comment.

“Sorry, I can’t speak with you guys,” Fernandes Anderson said.

As she was walking away, Fernandes Anderson was asked by the Herald, “So, you’re just speaking with the Globe?”

Another journalist asked Fernandes Anderson, “Why are you picking certain reporters?”

According to a plea agreement, Fernandes Anderson will plead guilty to two of six public corruption charges that had been lodged against her in a December 2024 federal indictment.

The charges are tied to allegations that she doled out a $13,000 bonus to one of her City Council staff members, also a relative, on the condition that $7,000 be kicked back to her. The exchange was coordinated by text and took place in a City Hall bathroom in June 2023, the indictment states.

U.S. Attorney Leah Foley plans to recommend that Fernandes Anderson be sentenced to a year and a day in prison, and ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution, per the terms of the plea agreement.

The timing of Fernandes Anderson’s resignation will determine whether the city will legally be allowed to hold a special election for her District 7 Council seat.

The city charter calls for a special election to fill an open district council seat if there’s more than 180 days until the election.

May 8 would mark 180 days, meaning that the seat would remain vacant until next January, if Fernandes Anderson, who makes $120,000, does not resign by that time. The district includes Roxbury, Dorchester, Fenway and part of the South End.

Fernandes Anderson was removed from all Council committees on Wednesday by Council President Ruthzee Louijeune.

_____

©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.