Boston: A woman from Boston will appear in court next week after being charged with claiming she was injured in the Boston Marathon bombing, which prosecutors say netted her tens of thousands of dollars.

Joanna Leigh, 41, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Suffolk County Superior Court for larceny and making a false claim to a government agency. She was at the Boston Marathon in 2013, but was not hurt by the bombs, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley’s office. About two weeks later, she claimed she was hurt after running toward the second blast to help people, Conley’s office said.

She was given $8,000 from One Fund Boston, an organization set up in the wake of the bombing to help victims. However, that is a fraction of the $2 million (Dh7.53 million) she had initially sought before refusing to turn over medical records, prosecutors said.

One Fund, which announced that it would no longer accept donations last December, says it has handed out nearly $80 million to more than 200 victims and their families. However, it has also been criticised by some victims who say that people who did not stay in the hospital for long periods of time were not properly compensated. One of the people who complained: Leigh, who said her injuries were worth more than the $8,000 she was given.

She told the Boston Globe on Thursday that she thinks the charges were just a response to her criticisms.

“I don’t think this is about me; I think this is because I spoke out about the One Fund,” she said. “I think this is about killing the messenger. I went after the governor and the mayor’s charity, and I didn’t shut up about it, and I caused them trouble.”

Conley’s office said the indictments were based on video surveillance, witness testimonies and statements Leigh gave to investigators after the bombing and the comments she made in media reports.

Investigators said that Leigh was also given more than $18,000 from a state fund, more than $1,700 from students and faculty at a middle school and more than $9,000 donated to an online fundraiser, which they say refers to her in the third person but was set up using her own email address.

She “saw an opportunity to take advantage of kind-hearted individuals who wanted to help” victims of the bombing, William Evans, the Boston police commissioner, said in a statement.

This indictment comes as the trial of one of the accused bombers plays out in a courthouse not far from where the bombs went off. The trial is delving into, among other things, the injuries suffered by people who were hurt by the attacks, putting these graphic details into news reports once again and pushing them into the public consciousness nearly two years after the bombing.

At least four other people have been charged with fraudulently trying to get compensation stemming from the bombing. Last year, a New York woman pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than two years in jail after getting nearly half a million dollars from the fund thanks to medical records officials later deemed were fake.

A month later, two brothers seeking compensation were found guilty of claiming that their aunt had lost her legs in the attack, even though she had died a decade earlier. Earlier this year, a woman in Maine was arrested for trying to get more than $20,000 for injuries investigators said she didn’t suffer.