Over the course of 2022 and 2023, Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Bloomfield, used his status and position on the Minority Business Initiative board (MBI) to push hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants toward a nonprofit startup called the Society for Human Engagement and Business Alignment (SHEBA) operated by a close associate, according to documents obtained by Inside Investigator through a Freedom of Information request.
Those grants are reportedly now at the center of a grand jury investigation that names McCrory, SHEBA president Sonserae Cicero Hamlin, and several other Hartford-area nonprofits connected to SHEBA through state-funded programs, according to the Hartford Courant.
SHEBA, through its various for-profit and nonprofit entities, offers human resource consulting and business opportunity training for entrepreneurs. It is owned and operated by Cicero Hamilin, who claims to be a former human resources executive for Walgreens.
According to business records, Cicero Hamlin started SHEBA Inc in 2018 before starting SHEBA’s nonprofit — the SHEBA Resource Center — in January of 2022, along with SHEBA Consulting in March of 2022, essentially just in time to receive grant funding through the MBI program and other programs under the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD).
According to documents and meeting transcripts obtained by Inside Investigator, over the course of 2022, McCrory pushed for SHEBA to receive $300,000 from the MBI to offer a business certification program for start-ups who, after completing the certification, would become eligible for forgivable loans up to $50,000 through a partnership between HEDCO and the Spanish American Merchants Association (SAMA), backed by $3 million in state funds.
In October of 2022, an additional $5 million from the Small Business Boost Fund was awarded to the Hartford-based nonprofit Girls for Technology to work with SHEBA to “create support services for Black and Indigenous people of color women entrepreneurs,” by funneling participants to SHEBA’s business certification program, according to a press release from Gov. Ned Lamont.
SHEBA was also set to receive $350,000 of American Rescue Plan dollars through the now-defunct CT Next program in 2023, according to emails sent by Rhonda Olisky to Sheila Hummel, business development program manager for DECD. Hummel responded via email requesting to “talk about the $350,000 SHEBA allocation.” According to ARPA records, it does not appear SHEBA received those funds.
State open records show SHEBA’s nonprofit received $400,000 in federal pass-through grants between 2023 and 2025 from the DECD, but given the multiple grants that appeared to be going to SHEBA, it is difficult to determine which program those payments were associated with, although the total amount aligns with SHEBA’s budget narrative, which included buying office supplies.
In 2022, Cicero also applied for the Cannabis Accelerator Program through the Social Equity Council but was ultimately not recommended. Cicero also operates a cannabis consulting business called Melanated Marijuana, registered under the business name Levity Management, which she started in 2022 one month after she started the SHEBA nonprofit, according to state business records.
According to transcripts from a May 2022 meeting of the MBI board, at least one board member was skeptical about awarding significant funding to a heretofore unheard-of nonprofit that had just started its organization in January of that year.
MBI Advisory Board member George Mathanool, who was not present at the meeting during which Cicero presented her plan, questioned if it was wise to award so much money to a new startup nonprofit and thought the funds might be better used by distributing to one of the older and more established nonprofits, however, he was quickly rebuked by McCrory.
“But this young lady does not have any bonafides in any shape and form,” Mathanool said, according to transcripts. “For she’s a startup on her own and we are giving out 300k in one lump sum over even if we break it down, I don’t think that, as a fiduciary, that is kosher.”
McCrory argued they were not just giving money out to businesses that were “in the red,” but requiring them to go through a training and certification program offered by SHEBA and then said Mathanool didn’t have his facts straight.
“All the business, business ethics, financial literacy, all the things they need to be a successful business. And once those, once they complete that trip, that program, then they had the opportunity to have their loans forgiven and new opportunities for business,” McCrory argued. “You don’t have your facts. I’m unfortunate. I’m just gonna keep it simple and real. If you don’t have any facts. And and it’s unfortunately.”
“The problem is, guys, we gotta stop saying people are new, they start. We don’t get experiences because we don’t have resources to get experience,” McCrory continued. “We need new ideas, innovating new people into this perspective on how we move our community forward.”
The $300,000 grant to SHEBA was awarded in July of 2022. Emails show that in December of 2022, McCrory reached out to DECD to inquire the status of SHEBA’s initial $150,000 payment, and DECD officials responding by sending it “for approval with high importance.”
When approving funding for the partnership program between Girls for Technology and SHEBA in March of 2023, former DECD Commissioner Alexandra Daum questioned the numbers: “Am I reading this right that the grant is for $1M/year but the target for job creation is only 10 jobs/year?”
Hummel replied that SHEBA was working as a consultant to help startup businesses, and the ten jobs will come from those businesses. She also indicated that Girls for Technology had to hire staff to help women owned businesses.
McCrory also ushed Cicero into other state government agencies. During an April 2023 meeting of the Connecticut Lottery Corporation (CLC) Board of Directors, Chris Davis gave a special thank you to McCrory for introducing CLC to SHEBA to bolster their Lottery Vendor Diversification program.
“Special thanks to Sen. McCrory for the introduction to the Society for Human Engagement and Business Alignment, also known as SHEBA,” the meeting minutes say. “Because of this connection, we have participated in presentations to their cohorts of minority owned start-ups, including their most recent cohort in February. In addition to continuing our partnerships with MCC, SHEBA, the Center for Women and Enterprise, and the Greater New England Minority Supplier Diversity Council, we recently became a member of the CT Black Business Alliance to foster similar relationships with their members and associated businesses and look forward to additional successful procurement opportunities with their members in the near future.”
According to emails between Executive Director of Community Development and the Community Investment Fund Matthew Pugliese and DECD Commissioner Daum, McCrory pushed for more grant funding for SHEBA in September of 2023, but SHEBA was not eligible for grants through the Community Investment Fund.
During that same month, DECD officials arranged for a suite at a UConn basketball game against Duke and offered tickets to many of their partnership organizations like Girls for Technology and HEDCO, both of which declined the tickets. According to emails, “Sonserae has 2 tickets so probably is bringing Doug,” although it is unclear if the “Doug” refers to McCrory.
According to emails, however, it appears that there were some issues between both HEDCO and Girls for Technology (GFT) and SHEBA. GFT President Sabrina Tucker-Williams reached out to DECD in June of 2023, saying SHEBA wanted to represent itself as an equal party on the memorandum of understanding, that GFT was not portrayed well during a meeting, and that SHEBA was making a “posturing ploy.” The two organizations’ differences caused a delay in distributing the funds and warranted intervention by DECD officials.
President of HEDCO Kim B. Hawkins also communicated with DECD in June of 2023 that SHEBA was not properly vetting and documenting cash flow forms.
“The cash flow form continues to be an issue, we are receiving forms with no income or income for one or two months. The source and use of funds form doesn’t align with the request, so we are left to guess what the usage of funds are for,” Hawkins wrote. “As we discussed, SHEBA is to vet these documents and make sure that they are filled out correctly so that once we receive a full package, we can then move through the process. The delays in receiving a complete package and then having to decipher what is being requested, is creating more of a demand on staff.”
Hawkins also requested “another session between HEDCO staff and SHEBA staff be held again to make sure the process is understood correctly.”
It is unknown what exactly the grand jury is investigating and at this time there have been no official charges or allegations made by federal officials, but it represents another federal investigation into Connecticut politics following the arrest of former deputy secretary of the Office of Policy and Management Kosta Diamantis on corruption charges, and the arrest of former Rep. Michael DiMassa, D-West Haven, for theft of federal COVID dollars.
Neither McCrory nor Cicero-Hamlin returned Inside Investigator’s requests for comment. Tucker-Barrett indicated she could not offer comment pending the investigation. In followup reporting, the Hartford Courant indicated that state officials are cooperating with the federal investigation.
Connecticut Senate Republicans weighed in with a press release, saying they questioned the Lamont administration “about this potentially fraudulent activity involving millions and millions of Connecticut taxpayer dollars,” four months ago.
“As the federal government investigates, we as state lawmakers must have a bipartisan conversation on how to inject more transparency and accountability into the nonprofit grant process,” Senators Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, Henri Martin, R-Bristol, and Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said in a press release. “We must view this as an opportunity to enact meaningful reforms at the State Capitol to better protect taxpayers.”
The federal investigation is also looking into how $500,000 disappeared in a wire transfers to Hartford area nonprofits, including the Prosperity Foundation – another nonprofit that McCrory advocated heavily for during the May 2022 meeting of the MBI advisory board, with Mathanool again raising his objection that they had no idea who the Prosperity Foundation was or what they did.
The grand jury is also reportedly investigating Connecticut’s complicated and expensive cannabis licensing program. McCrory was also at the center of controversy in 2021 when he attempted to insert language into the draft cannabis legalization bill that would have benefitted Theraplant.
McCrory is a long-time lawmaker who is also co-chair of the legislature’s Education Committee. Both McCrory and Cicero-Hamlin were reportedly named in the subpoenas.
Cicero Hamlin in 2024 relocated SHEBA’s operations to a vacant church in downtown Hartford, according to the Hartford Business Journal. In their latest 990 from 2023, SHEBA’s nonprofit entity showed $938,250 in contributions and grants, and $303,893 in expenses.
During a press briefing, Gov. Ned Lamont said the state is working with the federal government to “get to the bottom of this.”
“Obviously, we cut off funding to that not-for-profit we had some doubts about,” Lamont said during a press briefing on August 4, although it was not clear which organization he was referencing. “We’re gonna let that play out. We put that money into other nonprofits to make sure people are taken care of, and to the degree the feds are involved, we are working with them every day to make sure no stone is unturned and we get to the bottom of this.”
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