Former state senator sentenced to 18 months in prison

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Former state Sen. Dean Tran was sentenced on Feb. 7 to a year and a half in prison followed by two years of supervised release, having been convicted of 23 felony counts including COVID and tax fraud, federal prosecutors said.

The Fitchburg Republican who was a member of the state Senate from late 2017 until early 2021 was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023 and convicted in September of 20 counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing false tax returns in connection with a scheme to defraud the Department of Unemployment Assistance and fail to report income to the Internal Revenue Service.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Dennis F. Saylor IV also ordered Tran to pay $25,100 in restitution to the DUA, $23,327 to the IRS, a $7,500 fine, and a mandatory assessment of $2,300. Prosecutors said Tran fraudulently collected $30,120 in pandemic unemployment benefits and concealed $54,700 in income after his Senate term ended.

The state Senate sanctioned Tran in 2020 after the Senate Ethics Committee found his office staff had been performing campaign work with public resources during business hours. He denied the charges. He was removed from his position as assistant minority whip and banned from interacting with his staff except through official emails.

Tran narrowly lost his 2020 reelection bid to Sen. John Cronin, a Democrat. In 2022, he ran for Congress against U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan and garnered more than 88,500 votes in his loss.

“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. His fraud and calculated deception erode the public’s trust in elected officials and diverted money away from those who truly needed it,” interim U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said. “Our office and our law enforcement partners are committed to rooting out public officials who violate the law and holding them accountable for their actions.”

See also:

• Former state senator convicted of scamming pandemic unemployment funds
• Former state senator’s four-front criminal legal battle may resolve by year’s end