{"id":521506,"date":"2026-08-14T09:46:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/lawrence-mayor-brian-depena-arrested-charged-with-fraud-and-money-laundering\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:46:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:46:45","slug":"lawrence-mayor-brian-depena-arrested-charged-with-fraud-and-money-laundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/international\/lawrence-mayor-brian-depena-arrested-charged-with-fraud-and-money-laundering\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawrence Mayor Brian DePena arrested, charged with fraud and money laundering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A federal complaint alleges that he used more than a million dollars from a loan intended for a business to pay tax debts, fund his political campaign, and settle personal loans.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editorial.-<\/strong> The mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Brian DePena<\/strong>, was arrested this Friday morning at his residence, according to three city councilors who confirmed it to Telemundo Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrest occurred one day after a criminal complaint accusing him of wire fraud and money laundering<\/strong> was filed in the United States District Court in Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more: Mayor of Las Terrenas questions restrictions during the peak of the 2026 Easter tourist season<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DePena, in addition to serving as mayor, is the owner and operator of Tenares Tire Service Inc.<\/strong>, a company dedicated to the sale of tires and automotive services in Lawrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor accused of using loan funds for other purposes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

According to the complaint, DePena applied in May 2020 to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) for Tenares Tire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SBA initially approved a loan of US$150,000<\/strong>, disbursed in June 2020. Subsequently, in July 2021, it authorized a modification for US$350,000, bringing the financing to US$500,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prosecution maintains that, when requesting the modification, DePena made false statements by claiming that the funds would be used as working capital to address the economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, prosecutors allege that US$85,000 was used to pay outstanding tax debts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)<\/strong> and another US$90,000 was allocated to his 2021 mayoral campaign<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More funding and new signage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The complaint indicates that subsequently the SBA approved a second loan modification for US$1.15 million<\/strong>, raising the total EIDL amount to US$1.65 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to prosecutors, DePena allegedly used an additional US$42,000 of those funds for his political campaign<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, the prosecution maintains that he allocated approximately US$883,000 of the loan resources to pay off high-interest loans secured by real estate properties he owned<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prosecution argues that the SBA would not have approved the loans if it had known that the money would be used to finance a political campaign, pay personal tax obligations, or settle loans linked to the mayor’s properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaign fund research<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The complaint also points out that, when the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance requested information about the origin of the deposits made into his electoral account, DePena identified the checks as \u201cCandidate Loans\u201d<\/strong> and \u201cFunds Needed for CTE Brian De Pe\u00f1a\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accusations are part of a criminal complaint and must be proven in court. The filing of charges does not constitute a declaration of guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal complaint alleges that he used more than a million dollars from a loan intended for a business to pay tax debts, fund his political campaign, and settle personal loans. Editorial.- The mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Brian DePena, was arrested this Friday morning at his residence, according to three city councilors who confirmed it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":521507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[42007,43601,24591,44182,40244,40853,40230],"class_list":["post-521506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international","tag-arrest","tag-breakingnews","tag-brian-depena","tag-cover","tag-mayor","tag-thetruthnewspaper","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-2bFo","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/690cd6b6aee8e.jpeg","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["International"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/690cd6b6aee8e.jpeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}