Drawing: Jane Flavell Collins

Patrice Tierney entered into a plea deal with the US Attorney’s Office in Boston wherein she admits to being “willfully blind” to the nature of her brother’s online gambling operations.

Oh boy … the election-driven hedlines in the mainstream press will likely be about tax fraud, but we’ll know it means something more to people involved with online gambling fights beyond Massachusetts’ 6th district …

The DOJ unsealed a 4-count indictment of Patrice Tierney yesterday, wife of US Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) — for aiding and abetting an allegedly illegal online gambling operation. Specifically, the Feds tagged her for tax fraud while managing a bank account for her brother Robert Eremian. Apparently she miscoded some bank transactions that help them avoid detection as online gambling funds from a business based in Antigua.

Tierney pled guilty yesterday and was released on her own recognizance. She faces up to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine, though her attorney, a former US Attorney, says she will likely receive probation with some home incarceration.

Tierney says she believed her brother’s business was selling and licensing software to legal online gambling businesses. Eremian and his brother Daniel Eremian were indicted in August by the DOJ in Massachusetts for a laundry list of crimes that included UIGEA violations.

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