Loser Dean Tran, indicted again, another success in Massachusetts Republican eyes

Will Dean Tran stand up?

That’s the big question – indeed the only question – in certain Massachusetts Republican circles right now.

The bust-out ex-Republican state senator was indicted for a third time Friday. This one is a federal rap, and now the 48-year-old two-time loser from Fitchburg is staring at some serious prison time.

He could get 20 years for wire fraud and another three for filing false tax returns – income tax evasion.

Unless, of course, he rats out everybody else in his crew.

Very soon the feds will be asking him all the usual questions.

How old are your two kids, Dean? Do you how old they’ll be when you get out if you have to do the standard 85 percent of a 20-year stretch?

Did anyone ever tell you that our conviction rate is over 99 percent?

Do you know the difference between “consecutive” and “concurrent” sentences, because you’re also looking at even more jail time on the state charges, like stealing the old lady’s gun?

Senator, do you also realize that at sentencing, the judge is going to order you to pay restitution for the $30,000 in welfare handouts you stole while you were running for Congress, not to mention all the income taxes you didn’t pay, plus penalties?

And if you can’t pay, Senator, do you know what a lien is? Because we’ll be slapping one of those on that rental property of yours in Fitchburg.

Mr. Tran, considering the world of hurt you’re in, do you think maybe you have some bigger crook or crooks you’d like to… trade up?

According to the feds, Tran was collecting COVID unemployment welfare while grabbing $90 an hour from a hapless Republican millionaire who dreams of being a kingmaker, but keeps stepping on one rake after another.

According to motions filed by Tran, that would be Rick Green, the owner of 1A Auto Parts. Green operates 1A as a kind of a sheltered workshop for otherwise unemployable Republican politicians like Tran and Geoff “DoorDash” Diehl, the three-time loser whom Green promoted from Brockton Uber driver to “director of business development.”

Green was and is the deep pockets behind what’s known as the Kool Aid Kult – the failed GOP rabble who wrecked the state Republican party over the last four years under the disastrous grip of dodgy chairman (and defeated state rep) Jim “Jones” Lyons.

Green, like Tran a failed GOP candidate for Congress, has taken care of losers that even Charlie Baker wouldn’t touch. He hired one of Lyons’ State House aides after the rep lost his seat. He once had the brother of a crooked state senator on his payroll.

This largesse is invaluable, because the Kool Aid Kult grifters are always getting jammed up legally. Jones was recently sued for $70,000 by UPS. One of the Kult’s vendors is suing the party for $260,000 he fronted for Diehl’s laughable 2022 race for governor.

Defendant Tran is all over social media posing with Lyons, Diehl, Green and the rest of the Kult’s bust outs.

Two of Tran’s dearest pals are Sen. Ryan Fattman and his wife, who has an elective county job in Worcester. The Fattmans just paid the state $207,000 to resolve assorted campaign-finance violations involving Jim Jones Lyons, who refuses to settle.

Would you care to guess who donated $10,000 to Sen. Fattman’s legal defense fund? That would be Rick Green, Tran’s benefactor.

Tran retired from elective politics in 2020 because of health problems –the voters got sick of him. The day after he was booted out of the State House, he filed for unemployment.

Naturally he was turned down. That was March 12. According to the indictment, two days later, Green’s company hired him to that $90-an-hour consulting gig.

The next day, Tran filed for COVID welfare. According to paragraph 23 of the indictment:

“Subject to administrative penalties, including penalties for perjury, TRAN checked the box stating that he was unemployed, partially unemployed or unable or unavailable to work….”

On Sept. 5, to cite a single example, Tran submitted a “false certification” to the state unemployment office claiming he had no work and needed to remain on the dole. On that same day, he sent an invoice for $3,330 to his Republican boss.

When his unemployment scam ran out, Green put him on the 1A payroll as a standard W-2 employee. That “afforded him numerous benefits that he was not qualified for before, including health insurance, life insurance and participation in the company’s retirement plans.”

The reason Tran remained a consultant until the COVID grift ended was because if his wages had been reported to the state, he’d have lost those phony-baloney welfare payments.

“TRAN was able to conceal his employment from the DUA (state agency) while he simultaneously collected both pay from the Automotive Parts Company and PUA (federal COVID welfare) benefits.”

How did an obvious dolt like Dean Tran put together a complicated scam like this? Did he get some assistance from other people in his, uh, circle, who were running similar COVID grifts?

Which is another obvious question the feds will want to ask Tran once he flips. Dean, do you know anyone else who received questionable COVID grants, perhaps to allegedly support a “business” that barely existed, and who then used the money for personal expenses, like maybe renovating a bathroom?

This third indictment may be a setback for the Kool Aid Kult’s plan to regain control of the GOP state committee in March. Tran had been penciled in to run as the Kult’s candidate for the committee seat in his old Worcester-Middlesex Senate District.

It’s been a rough stretch for the Kult. One of their arch enemies, Rep. Peter Durant, was just elected to the state Senate in a special election. It broke the GOP’s five-year election-losing streak that Lyons, Green and Diehl were so proud of.

Green, who backed John Kasich for president in 2016, can now devote his full attention to his latest loser candidate, Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis is running fifth in New Hampshire. Didn’t I tell you, Green really knows how to pick ‘em.

But it’s not all bad news for the state GOP’s Kool Aid Kult. Another of their failed candidates, Russell Protentis, just beat that open and gross lewdness charge in Hingham District Court. During his failed state Senate campaign last year, an old lady charged the Kool Aid Kultist with exposing himself to her at the Hanover YMCA pool.

The jury found him not guilty.

Congratulations Russell Protentis!

Do you suppose 1A Auto Parts is still hiring?