Former Massachusetts senator arrested for $30K COVID unemployment fraud, lying on tax return

A former Massachusetts lawmaker was charged Friday for fraudulently collecting more than $30,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits and lying about his income on his 2021 tax return, federal prosecutors said.

Former State Senator Dean Tran was indicted on 25 counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing false tax returns, the U.S. attorney’s office for Massachusetts said in a news release.

Tran, a Republican who represented Worcester and Middlesex from 2017 to 2021, appeared in federal court in Boston on Friday and pleaded “absolutely not guilty” to all charges.

The 48-year-old didn’t take any questions after the arraignment, but his attorney, Michael Gillis, said he hadn’t seen any evidence of wrongdoing.

“I would say that we’ve not received any evidence whatsoever of any crime that’s been committed,” Gillis told the Boston Herald. “When we get the discovery, we’ll look at it, but at this point there’s nothing been produced to us that shows any guilt for any crime.”

According to his indictment, Tran applied for pandemic unemployment benefits after he had already accepted employment as a paid consultant for a New Hampshire-based automotive parts company — after his state senate term ended in January 2021.

While working as a consultant, prosecutors say he fraudulently collected $30,120 in unemployment. He also allegedly hid from the IRS more than $50,000 he had received for his consulting job for the company.

“This was in addition to thousands of dollars in rental income that Tran allegedly concealed from the IRS while collecting rent from tenants of a Fitchburg rental property from 2020 to 2022,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.

“Dean Tran was once elected to serve taxpayers, but today we arrested him for allegedly cheating them out of tens of thousands of dollars in fraudulent unemployment benefits that were meant to be a lifeline for those struggling for survival as a result of the pandemic,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division, said.

He also allegedly “made the conscious decision” to lie about his employment status and about his rental property income “so he could get a tax break,” Cohen added.

In September, the disgraced lawmaker was charged with two counts of using an official position to secure unwarranted privilege. Prosecutors said he used state money to pay his staff to campaign for him. He later pleaded “absolutely not guilty of violating state ethics laws,” CBS Boston reported.

Over the summer, Tran also pleaded “absolutely not guilty” to several charges in connection with a different incident. Prosecutors said he allegedly stole a firearm from an elderly constituent and then misled investigators about what happened.