John Tierney’s (D, MA-06) wife to plead guilty to tax fraud.

It’s bad enough when Democratic politicians commit tax fraud on their own: now they’re having it show up among family members. What is this, contagious or something? Maybe we should make them start wearing face masks. Or biohazard suits.

The executive summary of this story is that Tierney’s wife is going to plead guilty to “four counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns by her brother.” She’s apparently gone with a plea bargain – because not being able to use one’s status as the wife of a seven-term Congressman to get probation for your tax cheating requires skill – and, of course, none of this is her fault, according to her husband.  I suppose that it would be a bit unfair of me to expect him to say anything else.  Still, these two sentences kind of jump out at one:

He said that she agreed to pay her brother’s personal obligations, some family obligations, and tax payments from an account he funded.

Tierney said Eremian’s taxes were paid to the government, and the mistake Patrice Tierney made was listing his earnings as ”commissions” rather than ”illegal gambling.”

As one of my colleagues noted last night, that sort of gives the whole game away right there.  I’m not exactly sure which obscure Treasury official came up with the idea of making it an additional crime not to declare your illegal income to the IRS, but darned if that little wrinkle hasn’t put its share and more of bad people behind bars.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Bill Hudak for MA-06.  His immediate family’s not in court for tax fraud today.

Man, Massachusetts campaign slogans are as easy to write as Illinois ones are.