Already imprisoned former Massachusetts state Senator Dean Tran will spend an extra month in federal prison for faking a job offer from his sister’s business in a ploy to keep milking taxpayers for unemployment benefits he wasn’t entitled to.

“I have some misgivings about what I am doing here because the conduct is in many ways worthy of more substantial punishment,” U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor, IV, said ahead of imposing the sentence at a hearing Friday afternoon. “While the family may think it harsh, I see it as an act of mercy.”

Tran, 50, of Fitchburg, pleaded guilty in December to one count each of obstruction of justice and of making a false statement. He faced a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 on the obstruction of justice charge and five years in prison for the false statement charge.

The Republican former Massachusetts state senator is already in the middle of serving an 18-month federal prison sentence after having been convicted by a jury in September 2024 for fraudulent collection of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits and willful omission of consulting and rental income from his tax returns in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Saylor on Friday imposed a sentence of 12 months concurrent imprisonment on each charge in the newer case, with 11 months to be served concurrently with Tran’s sentence on the last trial and one month consecutive. It is uncertain how the Bureau of Prisons may calculate exactly how much extra time Tran will serve because he has received good time credit on the previous sentence for being a model prisoner.

Prosecutors in this case sought 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $25,000. Defense attorney Jennifer McKinnon sought six months incarceration to run concurrently with the sentence he is already serving. This defense request, McKinnon wrote in a memo, is because “this case is closely intertwined with the case for which Mr. Tran is currently serving time and should have been resolved” with that case.

This case stemmed from the investigation into that case. Federal law enforcement agents interviewed him during a search of his home on the other case and had asked him about a job offer letter from his sister he submitted to get his unemployment benefits reinstated.

“Tran made material misrepresentations to the federal law enforcement agents about the letter,” federal prosecutors say, “including that his sister and co-defendant, Tuyet Martin, had authored the letter when she was not the sole author of the letter and Tran had revised it before it was finalized and submitted to unemployment officials.”

This is a developing story.