Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called for the resignation of City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson on Friday, hours after the councilor was arrested on federal corruption charges.

She was joined Friday afternoon by several city councilors who also said Fernandes Anderson should step down.

Fernandes Anderson is accused of receiving kickbacks from a family member she hired for her council staff. She paid the person a substantial bonus last year but arranged for a portion of the money to return to her own pocket, according to an indictment unsealed Friday morning.

In June of last year, prosecutors claim, the family member upheld their side of the deal, passing Fernandes Anderson $7,000 cash in a Boston City Hall bathroom.

In a statement Friday morning, Wu urged the second-term Democratic councilor to step away from her job.

“Like any member of the community, Councilor Fernandes Anderson has the right to a fair legal process,” Wu said. “But the serious nature of these charges undermine the public trust and will prevent her from effectively serving the city.”

Fernandes Anderson represents District 7, which includes parts of the Roxbury, Dorchester, South End and Fenway neighborhoods.

Read more: Read the indictment of Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson

She was arrested outside her Dorchester home around 6 a.m. Friday. At an initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Friday afternoon, Fernandes Anderson pleaded not guilty and was released without bail.

She is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud and a single count of aiding and abetting theft concerning a program receiving federal funds.

Fernandes Anderson declined to comment earlier this week as news reports circulated that she was under federal investigation.

“My job is show up and to fight for you,” she wrote to supporters in a post on Instagram. “And I will continue to do just that; the people’s work.”

As Fernandes Anderson prepared for her initial appearance in court Friday afternoon, some of her City Council colleagues, like Wu, called for her resignation.

District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn said he planned to file a hearing order Friday to establish a council Ethics Committee. In calling for Fernandes Anderson to resign, he alluded to other recent scandals on the City Council.

Read more: Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson charged with kickback scheme

“This unfortunately follows a series of legal and ethical lapses by members at the Boston City Council over the last several years, which have both reflected poorly on the city and distracted us from doing the people’s business,” Flynn said. “It is critical that elected officials, who have been placed in positions of public trust, work to provide positive and ethical leadership.

In 2023, then-Councilor Kendra Lara crashed her car into a home in Jamaica Plain while driving on a suspended license. She pleaded guilty in August and lost her reelection bid in November 2023.

The previous year, then-Councilor Ricardo Arroyo was accused of a 2006 sexual assault. The allegations emerged as he was locked in a tense campaign for Suffolk District Attorney.

Though it was later determined that no crime had been committed, Arroyo was stripped of his leadership positions on the council. He lost his district attorney campaign.

District 8 Councilor Sharon Durkan said in a statement Friday that Fernandes Anderson had failed to act with the integrity and responsibility required of those in public office.

“Public service is a privilege. The people of Boston deserve leaders who act transparently, ethically, and in the best interests of the community,” Durkan said.

“The allegations against Councilor Fernandes Anderson undermine the confidence of residents and tarnish the reputation of our City Council,” Durkan continued. “While Councilor Fernandes Anderson is entitled to a fair legal process, the severity of these charges makes it clear she cannot effectively serve the people of Boston.”

Read more: Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson pleads not guilty to corruption charges

Durkan, who also represents the Fenway neighborhood, added that Fernandes Anderson’s constituents there should “feel comfortable reaching out” to her office for any needs.

Councilor At-Large Erin Murphy called the allegations against her colleague “deeply disturbing” in a statement Friday afternoon, saying that they “perpetuate the damaging belief that our City Council is unworthy of the confidence of those we serve.”

“We are here to uplift and protect the people of Boston, not to exploit our positions for personal benefit,” she said. “The safety, integrity, and well-being of our community must always come first. The people of Boston deserve leaders who exemplify the highest standards of honesty and respect.”

Murphy also called for Fernandes Anderson to resign, and added that if the allegations are proven true, she hoped for “swift and appropriate action.”

Fellow Councilor John FitzGerald called the situation “profoundly concerning,” but said he believed it was “important to allow the legal process to unfold and give Councilor Fernandes Anderson the opportunity to address these serious charges.”

Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon declined to comment.

Federal authorities did not name the family member involved in the alleged scheme but said they were not an immediate family member of Fernandes Anderson.

In an email to a city employee, the councilor maintained that she had no relation to the person she hired, federal authorities said.

Councilors are barred from hiring their immediate family — a rule Fernandes Anderson ran afoul of in 2022 when she appointed her sister as director of constituent services and her son as an office manager.

Her sister’s initial salary of $65,000 was later bumped to $70,000 with a $7,000 bonus in June 2022. Her son’s pay, initially $52,000, jumped eleven days after his hiring to $70,000.

Under scrutiny for the ethics violations, Fernandes Anderson was forced to fire the pair. In July 2023, the Massachusetts Ethics Commission slapped her with a $5,000 civil penalty.

Fernandes Anderson earned $103,500 in 2023, according to prosecutors and city payroll records.

But the indictment describes a period of financial difficulty for the councilor early last year, which included missing rent and car payments and bank overdraft fees — all while the penalty from the ethics commission loomed.

It was around that period that Fernandes Anderson awarded a $13,000 bonus to the unnamed family member, whom she had hired in late 2022.

The person’s bonus, which had to be approved by the city council, was more than double the bonuses paid to the rest of her staff combined. Fernandes Anderson told her staff the larger sum was for the person’s earlier volunteer work, according to the indictment.

Over the two weeks after the family member received the bonus, the person withdrew thousands of dollars at three separate Boston bank locations.

With money in hand, the family member arranged to meet Fernandes Anderson in a City Hall bathroom, prosecutors said. There, out of view, the cash exchanged hands, according to the federal indictment.

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua Levy, whose office is prosecuting the case, described the bonus Fernandes Anderson paid to the staff member as a bribe to ensure they cooperated with the kickback scheme.

The notion of an illegal cash transfer inside a City Hall bathroom only “adds to the egregiousness” of the accusations, Levy said.

Stephen Kelleher, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI Boston division, said Fernandes Anderson enriched herself while pretending her motivations were civic-minded.

“The behavior we allege in today’s indictment is a slap in the face of the hard-working taxpayers in the city of Boston,” he said. “Nobody is picking on Tania Fernandez Anderson and her inner circle. We believe this is a situation of her own making.”

No one else has been charged in connection with the investigation, Levy said. But he declined to say if charges against others involved in the scheme could follow.

Friday’s indictment came just weeks after Fernandes Anderson was cited for multiple campaign finance violations stemming from what state regulators called a “routine analysis” of campaign finance reports from November 2023 to September 2024.

The state Office of Campaign and Political Finance found she failed to promptly disclose $32,900 of the $34,500 that was deposited into her campaign account during that period.

The office fined her $1,750 and ordered her to return $100 in excess contributions from another candidate’s committee.

Fernandes Anderson is the first Muslim, first formerly undocumented immigrant and first African immigrant to serve on the city council. She won reelection in 2023 with more than 70% of the vote in her district.

At 10 years old, Fernandes Anderson moved from Cape Verde to Roxbury, according to her biography on the council website. Those two places “formed the foundation of her unwavering commitment to the community.”

Before her election to public office, Fernandes Anderson worked as the executive director of Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets, as a parent advocate in the Boston Public Schools and as program manager for a shelter for homeless women.

She is a mother of two biological children and served as a foster mother to 17 kids.

Among her priorities on the council, the biography reads, is to ensure that “Municipal Government is actively working for the people of Boston.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.