“He’s the one who has to decide. He got elected, he put his name on the ballot and ran. Now he’s going to look at what he’s going through and whether or not he can effectively be the representative he claimed he would be,” Mariano said.

Asked what he personally thinks about the Flanagan situation, Mariano replied, “I have no opinion on it. I’m waiting for [him] to be convicted so I know that he’s guilty.”

Flanagan was arrested Friday and charged with allegedly defrauding his former employer, the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod, of $36,000 he used on personal and political expenses, then falsifying campaign finance records. He pleaded not guilty to five counts of wire fraud and one count of falsification of records.

Gov. Maura Healey quickly called for Flanagan to resign, as did Democrat Sens. Julian Cyr and Dylan Fernandes, House Minority Leader Brad Jones and the state Republican Party.

“I think it is premature,” Mariano said about those messages. “I think some of the senators that jumped on it [were] a bit premature. Everyone deserves a trial.”

As he walked away from reporters, Mariano added, “Look at what’s going on in Washington, people getting picked up and taken for no reason.”

The House Committee on Ethics, newly chaired this term by Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian, announced Monday that it will begin an investigation into Flanagan once the federal legal process concludes.

Mariano and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz, who similarly suggested the decision over resigning rests solely with Flanagan, said there’s precedent for the House Committee on Ethics to wait to begin its own work.

They pointed to the case of former Rep. Carlos Henriquez, who was convicted Jan. 15, 2014 on assault and battery charges against a woman he had been dating. The Ethics Committee voted several weeks later to recommend Henriquez’s expulsion from the Legislature, and the House expelled the rep on Feb. 6, 2014.

“We waited until after his conviction before we opened up the ethics investigation,” Michlewitz said of Henriquez.

Mariano added, “The Ethics Committee is not an investigative group. They don’t have agents to send out and investigate and collect evidence and make a decision.”

In 2020, prosecutors indicted former Rep. David Nangle on fraud charges. Nangle — who previously led the House Committee on Ethics — stepped down from his position in then-Speaker Robert DeLeo’s leadership team, but did not resign from the House. He lost his primary reelection bid seven months later, and pleaded guilty the following year.