Tierney’s spouse testifies in gambling case

US Representative John F. Tierney of Massachusetts and his wife, Patrice, dined at her brother’s home in Antigua in 1999 and 2009, but they did not know the house served as the alleged headquarters of an illegal online gambling ring, Patrice Tierney testified yesterday.

Patrice Tierney, who pleaded guilty last year to helping the brother file false tax returns, testified in US District Court in Boston that computers and telephone equipment were visible from the patio where they dined, but that no one was working.

“We had dinner,’’ she said.

Testifying under a grant of immunity, Patrice Tierney insisted repeatedly that she believed that Robert Eremian, her brother, was a software consultant for Sports Off Shore, instead of the principal owner, as the government has charged.

Patrice Tierney took the stand as a hostile prosecution witness in the trial of another brother, Daniel Eremian, on racketeering and money-laundering charges in connection with the business. Robert Eremian remains a fugitive.

After her conviction, in which she admitted to willful blindness to tax fraud, Patrice Tierney served 30 days in prison followed by five months of house arrest.

John Tierney, a Democrat from Salem, has not been implicated in the case and did not attend yesterday’s court session. He has said he knew his wife was involved in her brother Robert’s finances, but that he did not know the particulars.

“I knew my wife was helping her brother’s family; I didn’t know specifics,’’ John Tierney told the Globe in October 2010, when his wife pleaded guilty to four counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns.

Efforts to reach the congressman for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.

Daniel Eremian, 61, and his codefendant, Todd Lyons, 38, are said to have helped run Sports Off Shore from at least 1997 to 2010. Prosecutors have said that the company grossed more than $22 million and allegedly used shell companies to launder money, some of which had been funneled to Antigua from collection agents in the eastern United States. Lawyers for the two men have said the defendants thought that the company’s use of the Internet for gambling was legal.

Prosecutors said that Patrice Tierney, who managed a US bank account for Robert Eremian, received $223,000 from the account from 2004 to 2010. The money, which she described as gifts, came in checks that she wrote to herself or wrote to her mother, who then transferred the money back to her daughter, prosecutors said.

“Were you earning a living’’ through her help with the account, asked Assistant US Attorney Fred M. Wyshak Jr.

“I was being appreciated,’’ answered Tierney, who said she used the account to pay Robert Eremian’s taxes, family medical bills, and other household expenses after his return to Antigua in 2003. Despite shepherding millions of dollars through the account, Tierney testified, she was not an employee of the company.

Marc Nurik, a lawyer for Daniel Eremian, portrayed Patrice Tierney as a selfless supporter for an Eremian family suffering from physical and emotional distress.

“You were serving essentially as the rock of the family?’’ Nurik asked Tierney.

“Yes,’’ Tierney replied.

Donald K. Stern, a former US attorney who is representing Patrice Tierney, said outside the courtroom that the $223,000 figure does “not reflect what I understand to be the facts.’’

Stern said that Tierney was trying to help her brother handle what she believed to be legally obtained finances. His family, Stern said, had become “dysfunctional’’ and “sad.’’

Patrice Tierney said Robert Eremian, whose wife was being treated for substance abuse, had asked her to pay his children’s expenses through the account, and to care for their mother who had cancer.

According to law enforcement officials, Robert Eremian ran a large-scale illegal gambling business in the United States from the early 1980s through the beginning of 2010. State Police raided his Lynnfield office in 1996, which led Eremian to move the business’s headquarters to Antigua while some operations continued underground in Massachusetts, authorities said.

Eremian was convicted in 2002 of tax evasion and money laundering. Law enforcement and probation officials allowed him to leave the country to work as a computer consultant for Sports Off Shore. Patrice Tierney testified that she believed he held that job.

When Wyshak asked who Tierney thought owned the company, she replied, “I didn’t think too much about it.’’

After Robert Eremian’s conviction, prosecutors have said he returned to Antigua to operate his illegal gambling operation from there. In August 2010, Robert and Daniel Eremian were charged with racketeering, money laundering, operating an illegal gambling business, and filing false tax returns.

Stern said after Patrice Tierney’s testimony that he did not see any relevance in questions about her husband. “It’s clear that John Tierney had nothing to do with the substance of this case,’’ Stern said.