Boston Globe To Tierney: What Did You Know And When Did You Know It?

You know you’re in deep you-know-what when, as a Democrat, The Boston Globe demands that you come clean – and fast.

According to Representative Tierney, Patrice didn’t know the money was shady, and thought she was telling the truth when she filed Robert’s income tax forms claiming the money was from “commissions.’’ But that’s not what she asserted in court: A guilty plea is an admission to having knowingly committed a crime. John Tierney’s statement said that Patrice agreed only that she should have been more inquisitive about the true nature of her brother’s income. It was, in fact, a stunning lack of curiosity, since he previously had been charged with illegal gambling in the United States.

No one can account for absolutely everything a spouse does. But in most marriages, subjects like the management of a $7 million bank account tend to come up. John Tierney needs to explain precisely when he learned of this account, and whether he ever questioned its legality. The Tierneys made no reference to whether they themselves ever used or benefited from the money, though the congressman’s spokesman insisted that they did not. They should make it perfectly clear that they did not, and answer any and all questions on the matter.

With that information, voters should be able to make up their own minds about their congressman, who is on the ballot for an eighth term this November.

In handling issues like this, politicians usually follow a predictable script: There’s an expression of loyalty to one’s spouse, often followed at some point by an appeal to inquisitors to “lay off my family.’’ Inevitably, political allies pop up, chorus-like, to offer their support in such difficult times — as though someone got sick or died, rather than committed a serious felony.

Let’s hope the Tierneys and their supporters skip this drama and get quickly to the point: What did John Tierney know, and when did he know it?

Feel free to call his office and ask a helpful staffer.

Peabody: 978-531-1669

Lynn: 781-595-7375

Washington, DC: 202-225-8020

Democratic Congressman John Tierney’s Wife To Plead Guilty To Filing Bogus Federal Tax Returns For Her Brother’s Illegal Offshore Gambling Business; Update: Guilty Plea Entered

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This is my Congressman and he’s in a tough fight for for reelection against Republican Bill Hudak.  He’s a weasel…and he’s soon to be the husband of a convicted felon. Par for the course for a Massachusetts hack.

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.

We call that money laundering, boys and girls.

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. …”

Tierney said his wife believed her brother when he told her eight years ago that he was leaving the country to pursue a career in selling or licensing software to a legal Internet gaming business. He said Patrice agreed to care for their ailing mother and serve as a “de facto” second mother to her brother’s three teenage children.

Riiight.

She now realizes that the trust she formerly had in her brother was misplaced and she should have more aggressively questioned Mr. Eremian when he asked her to pay his personal (and) some family obligations and tax payments from an account he funded,” Tierney said in the statement.

“I stand by Patrice in this difficult time,” he said. “As she moves on with her life, she continues to be the primary caregiver to her own mother; a loving wife, mother and grandmother to her family; and a friend to the hundreds who know her.”

Hudak isn’t buying it.

“I call on John Tierney to disclose the full extent of his wife’s illegal activities and his own involvement, if any,” Hudak said. “We need full disclosure here.”

Hudak said last night that the charges against Patrice Tierney raise questions about John Tierney’s involvement.

A simple statement isn’t going to fly, Johnny.  He is asking the voters to believe that FOR SIX YEARS he had no idea that his brother-in-law ran an illegal offshore gambling business and that his wife managed its bank account.

Remember in November.

Update: Patrice Tierney pleaded guilty in federal court this afternoon.

The wife of Democratic incumbent Congressman John F. Tierney pleaded guilty today to charges she helped cover up her brother’s $7 million ownership stake in a Caribbean gambling operation by falsifying his federal tax returns.

With her husband by her side – and former U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern heading up her defense – custom jewelry designer Patrice Tierney, 59, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young and copped to four counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false federal tax returns for the years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

“I take full responsibility for what my part in this was,” said a soft-spoken and refined Patrice Tierney. She told the court she is being treated for depression and anxiety.

I’ll bet she is.

In what federal corruption prosecutors Fred M. Wyshak Jr. and Robert Fisher assailed in pleadings as a “conscious course of deliberate ignorance,” Patrice Tierney stated to her younger brother Robert Eremian’s tax preparer that the millions showing up in his Bank of America account came from “commissions” he earned as a computer consultant to Sports Offshore – a phone and Internet gaming racket based in Antigua.

“There were numerous, numerous red flags along the way that would have alerted the defendant that her brother was the owner of the business,” Wyshak said today. “She deliberately ignored those red flags.”

She and her Sergeant Shultz husband, Congressman Tierney.

Tierney sat listening to his wife’s confession with his head bowed and resting on hands folded together. He later emerged from court on his wife’s behalf but refused to answer questions as to whether today’s event could impact his re-election run this fall.

“Today is not about me. I’m here in support of Patrice,” the pol said.

Actually, today is very much about you, Johnny.  You still have lots of ‘splainin’ to do.