Mashantucket — Michael Thomas, the former Mashantucket Pequot chairman convicted of embezzling from the tribe that owns Foxwoods Resort Casino, has begun working for the tribe’s government.    

Thomas, 47, started this month as an executive assistant in the office of Antonio “Tony” Beltran, the tribe’s chief of staff, the tribe confirmed Wednesday.

The office, staffed by six people, oversees about a dozen tribal departments, including police, fire and emergency services, education, public works and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.

Thomas’ job entails both advisory and administrative duties, according to Lori Potter, the tribe’s director of communications.

“Mike’s wisdom gained over many years of successes and challenges have primed him to be a tremendous asset during a very strategic time for our community,” Potter said in a statement.

Thomas was released from prison May 1, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ website, having served less than 16 months of the 18-month sentence he received for stealing more than $100,000 from the tribe.

He also was ordered to serve three years' probation and to make restitution to the tribe.

In 2013, a U.S. District Court jury in New Haven found Thomas guilty on all three counts of an indictment charging him with fraudulently misusing a tribe-issued American Express card to pay for personal expenses from 2007 to 2009.

That two-year period came at the end of Thomas’ seven-year stint as chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, which governs the tribe and manages its gaming enterprises.

Evidence presented at Thomas' trial showed most of the fraudulent American Express charges were for his dying mother's limousine rides between the Mashantucket reservation and a New London dialysis center.

Thomas was ousted as chairman amid a financial crisis prompted by declining revenues at Foxwoods, which defaulted on $2.3 billion in debt in 2009.

A 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld Thomas’ conviction in a 2014 ruling.

Thomas’ younger brother Steven was indicted along with him in 2013 and pleaded guilty to a single count of stealing more than $177,000 from the tribe by accepting payment for work he never performed as a tribal-government employee.

Steven Thomas, at one time the tribal council’s treasurer, was hired to work in Foxwoods’ human resources department while awaiting sentencing in late 2013.

Both Thomas brothers were temporarily banished from the tribe in 2014.

While Michael Thomas, imprisoned at the time, was barred from all tribal lands, a separate order pertaining to Steven Thomas banished him from the reservation for a year “with the exception of his home located on the Reservation, to/from his place of employment, and any location that is required by his employment."

Steven Thomas continues to work at Foxwoods, said Potter, the tribal spokeswoman.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

Twitter: @bjhallenbeck