The wife of Congressman John Tierney is scheduled to plead guilty today to federal tax charges arising from her brother's illegal offshore gambling business, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

   Hope she has a good lawyer.  With the Democrats this year ignoring the issues,  demeaning their challengers, and some distancing themselves from the president, it will be interesting if this story makes the national news.  If nothing else, the Congressman should be questioned on what he did know about his wife's 'job'.
 

SALEM — The wife of Congressman John Tierney is scheduled to plead guilty today to federal tax charges arising from her brother's illegal offshore gambling business, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Patrice Tierney, 59, of Salem, has been charged with four counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false federal tax returns, according to documents that were unsealed in federal court yesterday.

Prosecutors say the congressman's wife managed a bank account from 2003 to 2009 with more than $7 million in money from illegal gambling activity by her brother, Robert Eremian, in Antigua. They allege she mischaracterized the deposits as "commissions" and her brother's job as "computer consultant" in documents submitted to Eremian's tax preparer.

She faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison, followed by one year of supervised release, and a fine of up to $100,000 on each of the false tax return counts.

The charges come less than a month before John Tierney will face Republican Bill Hudak on Election Day for the 6th District congressional seat that Tierney has held since 1997.

Tierney released a statement yesterday saying that his wife accepts full responsibility for being "willfully blind" to her brother's action. He said she acknowledges that she "should have done more to personally investigate the true nature of Mr. Eremian's business activities. ..."

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