Tierney adamant: 'It was her family's stuff'

SALEM — His campaign under siege after his wife's admission this week to falsifying federal tax returns, Congressman John Tierney said Friday he knew very little about her management of a bank account full of illegal gambling profits.

"I couldn't tell you if there was $5 going through there or $500. It was her family's stuff," he said.

Federal authorities allege that Patrice Tierney, from 2003 to 2009, handled an account with more than $7 million generated by the illegal gambling activity of her brother, Robert Eremian. She pleaded guilty Wednesday to four counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false federal tax returns.

With her brother living in Antigua, Patrice Tierney, 59, used the money he funneled to a Bank of America account to cover the expenses of the three children he left behind in Lynnfield. She also filed Eremian's taxes, listing his earnings as "commissions" rather than "illegal gambling" income.

In a Friday interview at the offices of The Salem News, the Times' sister newspaper, John Tierney said he and his wife believed that Eremian, who had previously gotten in trouble for a Lynnfield-based gambling operation, was running a legitimate business, having in 2002 received approval from a judge to travel abroad to pursue a career in selling or licensing software to legal Internet gaming businesses.

Tierney also said that:

He would pay back or donate to charity money given his campaign by his mother-in-law if it came from Eremian.

He and his wife never benefitted from Eremian's money.

The money went to support a family in crisis.

When hundreds of thousands of dollars started showing up in the account, Tierney, a Democrat from Salem, said he wasn't aware of whether or not his wife asked her brother for records that could verify the legality of his business.

"That's all her case. You would have to ask her, but we never discussed it," Tierney said. "When my mother died and I took care of her estate, Patrice didn't ask me, 'Well how much (money) did you get? And where is it going?'"

Patrice Tierney never expressed any concern that all the money might cause problems or at least potentially embarrass her lawmaker husband.

"Why would she think it would be embarrassing if he was down there doing a legal thing?" the congressman said during an often contentious meeting with the newspaper's editorial board. "From what I understand, listening to the U.S. attorney, the lion's share of that money was for taxes. Why would that be a concern?"

"It's not like it's her money," Tierney said. "It's his money and it's paying his bills. I don't know what would have possibly triggered her to be concerned."

Asked if, in retrospect, he wished he had looked into the matter more, Tierney did not express any regret.

"What I wish is that my brother-in-law had said to his sister, 'Hey, 'I'm lying, you don't want to be doing this. That's what I wish."

Child care woes

Patrice Tierney managed the account on her own computer using QuickBooks accounting software. "It wasn't like it was a hidden thing," according to her husband.

But Tierney and his wife, married since 1997, didn't talk about it very much.

"What we talked mostly about was (Eremian's) kids, if we talked at all," Tierney said. "I was busy doing my job and she helps me by coming around with me when I'm home on the weekend. We're moving at a pretty good pace."

The kids, all teenagers, were a "handful." Their mother was also away in Florida receiving treatment for health issues. Besides Patrice, a young au pair was there for the kids.

"She was part of the problem," Tierney said of the au pair. "She wasn't doing her job. The kids were ruling the roost."

In August, Eremian and Patrice Tierney's other brother, Daniel, were indicted on charges that included racketeering, money laundering and operating an illegal gambling business. Robert Eremian is currently a federal fugitive.

Shortly before the indictment is when Tierney said he first learned that his brother-in-law was not doing what he said he would do in 2002. It is also when Patrice consulted a lawyer and ceased dealing with her brother's account, Tierney said.

"I don't know," he said, when asked if she was ever visited by the U.S. Attorney's Office. "If she (was), she didn't tell me. I would expect that she would have."

Upset with prosecutor

The congressman hasn't been entirely pleased with federal authorities, especially their implication that gambling was the Eremian family business.

"The prosecutor stood up there and tried to make it look like it was some sort of big family thing or whatever. Bull . I don't know how prosecutors sleep at night, this one in particular," Tierney said. "Bobby had a gambling thing, whether Danny was involved I don't know. They're alleging that he is. That's the extent of it that I know of."

Over the years, Tierney said, he had little interaction with Robert Eremian.

"We saw him sporadically," he said. "He was down there primarily. I think (Patrice and Robert) e-mailed. I don't know. I'm away."

Tierney said he did not benefit from Eremian's money.

"I have not made a dime from my brother-in-law," he said. "It's a non-issue."

If $4,800 in campaign contributions that his mother-in-law, who did receive support from Eremian, is somehow linked to the account, Tierney said he would "pay the money back" or donate it to charity.

A member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Tierney has exposed corruption along the U.S. military's supply line in Afghanistan and shed a light on the substandard care provided soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

There is no correlation, he said, between his attention to detail in the hearing room and his household.

"I trust my wife and I love her and that was her family stuff," he said.

"I'm not a husband appointed to oversee my wife's activity," he said. "I'm a congressman. Part of my job is to oversee all the federal agencies, particularly National Security and Foreign Affairs, to make sure that taxpayers' dollars are spent properly.

"It wasn't my job to see that her brother's account was administered properly."

Matthew K. Roy may be contacted at mroy@gloucestertimes.com

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