In August 2014, Fattah's longtime aide and close confidant Gregory Naylor pled guilty to federal charges in a complex money laundering scheme used to hide an illegal million-dollar loan that a candidate, unnamed in that indictment, received for his failed mayoral campaign in 2007. The loan was paid back using federal grant money intended for nonprofit organizations affiliated with Fattah. A subsequent Philadelphia Daily News investigation revealed that nonprofits receiving federal funding and connected to Fattah paid out over $5.8 million to Fattah allies and alleged that many of these payments were ethically dubious.