State Sen. Douglas McCrory had a powerful voice over how one of the city’s leading nonprofit agencies distributed state grant money, including decisions directing millions of dollars to a new and relatively untested charitable organization created by a close personal friend, according to a variety of sources.
Almost immediately, McCrory’s relationship with Sonserae Cicero-Hamlin raised a red flag. The relationship, combined with decisions by Hartford’s Blue Hill’s Civic Association to send her $1.7 million in grants and consulting fees, became a subject of concern among the association board at the venerable north Hartford nonprofit.
Notes from a July 2024 Blue Hills board meeting warn of a “conflict of interest” because Cicero-Hamlin “is his girlfriend.” By early August, Blue Hills board Chairman JoAnn Price had told the organization’s executive director that it was her wish for Cicero-Hamlin “not to be involved” with Blue Hills because “Doug under investigation,” according to a variety of records and interviews with nonprofit officials.
Price resigned from the Blue Hills board in September, at least in part, according to an associate, because of her concern about the Blue Hills decision to make Cicero-Hamlin’s two-year old nonprofit called SHEBA a subrecipient of a substantial portion of the grant money Blue Hills was receiving annually from the state.
While Price was questioning the Blue Hills relationship with SHEBA, Cicero-Hamlin’s new organization was collecting another $1.8 million in state grant money from other nonprofit organizations. That made SHEBA the recipient, over two years, of nearly $3 million in state grants and hundreds of thousands more in consulting fees paid for with grant money, according to government and private records, as well as interviews with officials involved with Hartford nonprofits.
Price, Cicero-Hamlin, McCrory and the now former executive director of the Blue Hills Civic Association have ignored or declined requests to be interviewed on the events. But Price’s reference to an investigation has proven accurate.
For months, federal investigators have been examining how tens of millions of dollars has been distributed among Hartford nonprofits, some of which play a vital role across the city’s economically distressed north side. The investigators also are looking at the operation of Cicero-Hamlin’s consulting business and another operated by attorney Kevin T. Henry, a McCrory friend and political backer.
The investigation went public in July after federal prosecutors empaneled a grand jury and issued subpoenas to several nonprofits and the Department of Economic and Community Development, the principal state conduit for delivering taxpayer money to charitable organizations.
Materials sought by the grand jury subpoenas put McCrory, 59, and Cicero-Hamlin, 52, at the center of the inquiry. Subpoenas are requests for information, not accusations.
McCrory is an imposing high school and collegiate basketball standout who has been in legislature as a state representative and later senator for two decades. A former Blue Hills board member said Cicero-Hamlin is part of a well-known Hartford family, but was unknown on the non-profit scene until creating her SHEBA related businesses in 2022.
Some subpoenas ask recipients to produce to the grand jury records of “all communications” with McCrory, Cicero-Hamlin and her SHEBA related entities. Notably, the Department of Economic and Community Development was instructed to produce “all documents concerning any personal or non-professional relationship” between the two.
The fact that McCrory and Cicero-Hamlin were close was apparent to acquaintances, although some said the two were circumspect about a relationship. An acquaintance said the two attracted attention when they sat together in front row seats at a Hartford Stage performance for nonprofits of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running earlier this year.
Another acquaintance confirmed rumors that the two, at least until recently, were living in a house in Bloomfield — a house that had McCrory for Senate signs in the front yard when featured on an internet real estate site.
State records show Cicero-Hamlin has registered four affiliated, limited liability companies since 2018 under the SHEBA name, which stands for the Society of Human Engagement and Business Alignment. Public and private records show she did business with Hartford nonprofits, as well as state and city governments through SHEBA LLC or SHEBA Consulting, LLC, both of which were registered in 2022.
In its marketing materials, SHEBA describes itself as a “minority and women-owned full HR support service for entrepreneurs and candidates seeking job placement.”
“We are focused on supporting those impacted by socio-economic and cultural challenges,” the organization says on a website. “Our goal is to align our clients’ needs with the talents and skills of diverse candidates and consultants.”
The Blue Hills Civic Association gave SHEBA at total of $1.2 million in two, $600,000 payments over fiscal 2024 and 2025 as a subrecipient of the $5.5 million Blue Hills received from the state over each of the same two years, according to state and private nonprofit records.
Internal Blue Hills Records show the $600,000 payments to SHEBA were multiples larger than its payments to other nonprofits it chose as subrecipients. Only the Prosperity Foundation, a New Haven nonprofit founded by New Haven funeral service owner Howard Hill, received a greater amount, at $1.1 million a year.
The Blue Hills also paid SHEBA $250,000 a year, at $280 an hour, for consulting services on human resources issues in both 2022 and 2023. Among other things, SHEBA was paid to evaluate salaries paid to the 33 Blue Hills employees, provide management and leadership training, train the board of directors and update the employee handbook, according to a former senior Blue Hills official and a review of records.
The former official also said — and a review of records confirms — that Blue Hills also paid Hartford Attorney Kevin T. Henry at least $50,000 for “advisory” services.
The Blue Hill Civic Association ceased operation last spring after establishing itself as a pillar of the north Hartford social service network over 60 years. The state cut off funding in March, effectively shuttering the operation and resulting in layoffs of all staff, after learning that the nonprofit had failed to report to the state that it lost $300,000 five months earlier, apparently through a fraudulently intercepted wire transfer.
It was one of two major losses by Connecticut non profits as a result of what appear to have been intercepted wire transfers. The Prosperity Foundation lost hundreds of thousands of dollars the same way a year earlier.
The Blue Hills money was to have been transferred in October 2024 to the nonprofit My People Community Services, another subrecipient chosen to receive state grants through Blue Hills. Former Blue Hills Executive Director Vicki Gallon-Clark learned that the money had been stolen early in December, but for reasons that remain unclear, did not report the loss to the non-profit board or the state funding agency, the DECD, until late March.
An independent investigation of the intercepted transfer by the Crumbie Law Group of Hartford found that Blue Hills had been provided with wire instructions that modified the My People recipient’s data in a way that directed the funds to an unknown party.
The Crumbie investigation found that Blue Hills reported the loss to the police and FBI almost immediately, but that Gallon-Clark decided not to tell the DECD because she wanted to speak first with McCrory, who was on vacation most of January. When she reached McCrory, Gallon-Clark said, he told her to delay informing the state until the FBI investigation was complete. McCrory denied doing so in remarks to reporters last spring.
McCrory and Gallon-Clark recently declined to discuss the matter further.
While the Crumbie report was commissioned to examine the intercepted transfer, it also shows the influence McCrory had over charitable spending by Blue Hills and the choice of nonprofits, such as SHEBA, it chose as subrecipients of state grant money.
To cover the loss due to fraud, Gallon-Clark told the Crumbie group that she eventually issued a second, $300,000 payment to My People. She said she knew Blue Hills had funds to cover the payment because of decisions made with McCrory about how to distribute state money among eligible nonprofits
“The Senator and I sat down in September and decided as to the amounts that each (subgrantee) was getting,” Gallon-Clark told the Crumbie group. “We knew back in September that there would be undesignated money.”
Asked why she initially notified McCrory of the loss rather than the Blue Hills board, she said it was because “he identified funding and ensured it got approved and directed to our agency.”
There are other signs that McCory was able to influence decisions at Blue Hills. A former employee said that when she started working, she mistook him for a co-worker because he spent so much time in the office. She said staff sometimes had difficulty meeting with Gallon-Clark because of the time she spent with McCrory.
Dozens of budget worksheets and related documents have titles or bear hand-written notes reading “per conversations with Senator McCrory,” “confirm with Doug,” “Allocation via Senator McCrory,” “per Doug changes,” or something similar.
The office of Connecticut U.S. Attorney David X. Sullivan will not confirm an investigation of nonprofit spending in Hartford. But nonprofits across the city and officials associated with them have been retaining lawyers in recent weeks and preparing boxes of materials for delivery to the FBI in compliance with subpoenas.
If the investigation proceeds as have others, it could continue for months.
