Massachusetts State Rep. Francisco Paulino was arrested on August 26, 2026, and charged with pandemic benefit fraud and money laundering. Federal prosecutors said the case centers on relief money that was funneled through other people and into accounts tied to him.
He was indicted on eight counts of wire fraud and three counts of unlawful monetary transactions. Prosecutors said the alleged conduct ran from April 2020 to December 2021 and involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in government loans.
16th Essex District charges
Paulino represents the 16th Essex District, which includes Lawrence and Methuen. The charges place a sitting lawmaker from that district into the same federal case timeline as Lawrence Mayor Brian DePeña, who was arrested Friday, August 14, and later indicted Wednesday in a separate alleged scheme.
His state legislature website describes him as a tax lawyer and business consultant. That same site says he has two children, a personal detail that now sits beside accusations that his tax preparation business, Madison Tax, was used as a device of the scheme.
Madison Tax and relief money
Prosecutors said Paulino used intermediaries and the identities of other people to funnel pandemic-related relief funds to his own personal and business bank accounts. The allegation is not just that money moved, but that the routing itself was built around borrowed identities and middlemen, a structure that can obscure who actually controlled the funds.
He is accused of using Madison Tax in that scheme and of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in government loans under false pretenses. Put plainly, the charging document ties the money to a business he publicly presented as part of his work and says the business was part of how the funds were diverted.
Leah Foley’s office in Boston
More information was expected to be presented at 11 a.m. Wednesday at U.S. Attorney Leah Foley's office in Boston. For people in Lawrence and Methuen, the immediate consequence is that the federal case now moves from accusation to court process, with the indictment spelling out the counts prosecutors will have to prove.
The open question is how much of the alleged loan money Paulino personally received and whether he has responded to the indictment.
