{"id":45680,"date":"2026-08-15T02:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45680"},"modified":"2026-08-15T02:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:19:17","slug":"massachusetts-mayor-accused-of-using-a-pandemic-loan-to-fund-election-campaign-and-pay-his-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45680","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts mayor accused of using a pandemic loan to fund election campaign and pay his taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">BOSTON &#8212; <\/span>A Massachusetts mayor was arrested Friday and charged with fraudulently obtaining a <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/small-business-monitor-loans-f428495df9cbfd16b6495ac00a03d760\">pandemic loan<\/a> and using the money to fund his election campaign as well as pay off high-interest mortgages on several of his properties and personal taxes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Lawrence Mayor Brian DePena was charged Friday with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. He will be arraigned Friday afternoon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">DePena, 61, is accused obtaining a COVID-19 small-business loan worth $1.5 million for his tire sales business. Rather than using the money for the business, DePena allegedly spent more than $880,000 to pay off high-interest mortgages on various businesses and put $90,000 into his mayoral campaign fund ahead of the 2021 election. DePena has been mayor since 2021 and previously served on the Lawrence City Council.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI\u2019s Boston Division, accused DePena of \u201ccashing in on a public health crisis and blatantly defrauding a government program meant to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWhen elected officials misuse federal funds for personal gain, they\u2019re breaking the trust of their constituents \u2014 and breaking the law,\u201d Docks said in a statement. \u201cTogether, with our partners, the FBI will continue to doggedly pursue anyone who defrauds the federal government. You\u2019ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that \u2018easy money\u2019 won\u2019t seem so easy after all.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">DePena, his spokesperson and his chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In 2020 and 2021, DePena obtained a government disaster loan for Tenares Tire Services Inc., a tire sales and automotive services in Lawrence. During the pandemic, the Small Business Administration offered loans to qualified business that were suffering financial losses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He used a loan of $150,000 for the business. A year later, prosecutors say, DePena&#8217;s mayoral campaign was running short of cash, he owed back taxes and was under pressure to pay back high-interest loans on several of his properties in Lawrence. He then requested several increases to the government loan and allegedly used $1.5 million to cover those expenses unrelated to his tire business.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">If convicted on the wire fraud charge, DePena faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. He faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 if convicted on the money laudering charge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BOSTON &#8212; A Massachusetts mayor was arrested Friday and charged with fraudulently obtaining a pandemic loan and using the money to fund his election campaign as well as pay off high-interest mortgages on several of his properties and personal taxes. Lawrence Mayor Brian DePena was charged Friday with one count of wire fraud and one&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.abcnews.com\/images\/US\/abc_news_default_2000x2000_update_16x9_992.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}