Ex-Massachusetts lawmaker Dean Tran (R) sentenced for scamming pandemic unemployment funds
Source: Associated Press
Ex-Massachusetts lawmaker sentenced for scamming pandemic unemployment funds
Updated 6:43 PM EST, February 7, 2025
BOSTON (AP) — A former Massachusetts state senator was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison for scheming to defraud the state Department of Unemployment Assistance and collecting income that he failed to report to the Internal Revenue Service.
Dean Tran, 48, of Fitchburg, was convicted in September on 20 counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing false tax returns after a six-day trial.
After the Republican’s term ended in 2021, Tran fraudulently received pandemic unemployment benefits while simultaneously employed as a paid consultant for a New Hampshire-based retailer of automotive parts, investigators said.
“When Dean Tran took his oath of office as a Massachusetts State Senator, he willingly entered into a world of being in the public eye. He chose to violate the public’s trust not once, but twice by defrauding the government out of unemployment benefits and willfully omitting his taxable income,” U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said. “His fraud and calculated deception erode the public’s trust in elected officials and diverted money away from those who truly needed it.”
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/pandemic-unemployment-fraud-tran-massachusetts-senator-2413d7d67b59cb8d94bdac3c5bc6e982
________________________________________________
Related: Former Massachusetts State Senator Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison for COVID and Tax Fraud (U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts)