A former Massachusetts state senator was arrested on Friday after being accused of fraudulently applying for COVID-19 unemployment benefits in 2021, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said former Sen. Dean Tran was charged with scheming to defraud the Department of Unemployment Assistance and collecting income that he failed to report to the Internal Revenue Service.
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Prosecutors said Tran, 48, was indicted on 25 counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing false tax returns. He was arrested Friday morning and appeared in federal court in Boston in the afternoon.
Tran pleaded "absolutely not guilty" to all the charges. He didn't have any comment when asked about the charges after his court appearance.
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The judge said he is not a flight risk and allowed Tran to go on a pre-planned trip to Aruba Saturday for a week, and just to check in with probation when he gets back.
After his state Senate term ended two years ago, Tran had already accepted a job as a paid consultant for a New Hampshire-based automotive parts company, prosecutors said. Tran allegedly fraudulently collected $30,120 in pandemic unemployment benefits.
Tran also allegedly hid over $50,000 in consulting income he received from the New Hampshire-based company in his 2021 federal income tax return.
"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," wrote prosecutors in a release Friday.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, if convicted, Tran could face up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud with three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.
The false tax returns charge comes with a sentence of up to three years in prison, one year of surprised release and a fine of $100,000, said prosecutors.
"The number of counts are really significant," NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne said. "The fact that they feel the fraud was so widespread that they would seek such a sweeping indictment is really almost stunning, and likelihood then of him being able to overcome these charges is low."
Tran is from Fitchburg and served as a senator, representing Worcester and Middlesex, from 2017 to 2021.
