A former Republican state senator who ran for Congress has been convicted of pandemic assistance fraud and making false statements on federal tax returns.

Dean Tran was convicted on Wednesday by a federal jury of 23 charges arising from his fraudulent application for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and false statements on federal tax returns, according to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Tran was arrested by the feds last year and charged with scheming to defraud the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance, and collecting income that he failed to report to the IRS.

Tran served as an elected member of the State Senate from 2017 to January 2021. After his State Senate term ended, Tran allegedly fraudulently applied for pandemic unemployment benefits while he had already accepted employment as a paid consultant for a New Hampshire-based automotive parts company.

While working as the paid consultant, Tran fraudulently collected $30,120 in pandemic unemployment benefits, the feds said.

Tran also concealed over $50,000 in consulting income that he received from the automotive parts company on his 2021 federal income tax return.

This was in addition to thousands of dollars in rental income that Tran allegedly concealed from the IRS while collecting rent from tenants of a Fitchburg rental property from 2020 to 2022.

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Tran in 2017 became the first Vietnamese-American elected to the Massachusetts Legislature.

His senate district included Fitchburg, Leominster, and several other communities in north central Massachusetts.

Tran lost the State Senate seat in 2020, and he ended up running unsuccessfully for Congress in the 3rd District in 2022.