By Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff
06/28/2012

After being sentenced for a racketeering and gambling conviction, the brother-in-law of US Representative John F. Tierney told the Salem News outside federal court today that the congressman was a “liar” and “knew everything” about the family gambling operation that landed his wife in prison last year.

Daniel Eremian, who is the brother of Tierney’s wife, Patrice, also told the News that Patrice Tierney was forced to enter a plea agreement in 2010 on a related tax fraud charge to save the congressman’s political career.

The statement threatened to shake up the reelection contest for Tierney, an eight-term Salem Democrat who is already viewed as vulnerable as he faces a challenge from former state Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei.

Tierney was reelected in November 2010, less than a month after Patrice Tierney pleaded guilty in US District Court for filing false tax returns for a second brother, Robert Eremian, who is still at large. She served 30 days in prison and five months of house arrest.

Prosecutors said she received $223,000 — which she described as “gifts” — from an account stocked with gambling proceeds as she paid bills for Robert’s children and their ailing mother. But she claimed “willful blindness” to the criminal enterprise in her family and the Congressman has vigorously denied any knowledge of a family gambling operation.  Read More.