Former Massachusetts State Senator Dean Tran has pleaded guilty to charges connected to stealing a gun from a constituent and lying to police about it, the state attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.
On Monday, the 49-year-old Fitchburg resident pleaded guilty to larceny of a firearm, misleading law enforcement in a criminal investigation and filing an application for a license to carry containing false information, the attorney general’s office said in a press release. Tran is a Republican who served as a Fitchburg city councilor from 2005 to 2017 and represented the Worcester and Middlesex District from 2017 to 2021.
In June 2019, Tran “used his position of trust as a public official to take advantage” of a constituent by convincing her to sell him her late husband’s firearm collection in exchange for $1,500, the attorney general’s office said. The constituent soon changed her mind about parting with the guns, and Tran returned them to her.
But within days, Tran returned to the constituent’s home when she was there alone and stole a Colt .45 pistol that was part of the collection, the attorney general’s office said. When interviewed by police about the theft, he tried to mislead investigators by giving conflicting stories about what happened.
Tran also made false statements on his application to renew his firearms license in May 2019, the attorney general’s office said.
When Tran was first charged in the case in 2022, he also faced charges of larceny over $250 from a person over 60, obtaining a signature by false pretenses with intent to defraud and stealing by confining or putting a person in fear. These charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea, the attorney general’s office said.
Tran’s jury trial on the charges was set to begin Monday. Instead, he was sentenced to six months in state prison on each of the three charges, but this time will be served concurrently with the federal prison sentences he is in the process of serving time for already, the attorney general’s office said.
In November 2023, Tran was arrested and charged with 25 counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing a false tax return. He was accused of fraudulently applying for pandemic unemployment benefits and hiding more than $50,000 in income from his paid consulting job from tax authorities, among other misdeeds.
In September 2024, a federal jury convicted Tran on 23 of the charges against him. In February, a judge sentenced him to a year and a half in prison, two years of supervised release and to pay over $50,000 in restitution and fines, according to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office.
