A jury indicted a high-stakes poker player-turned-Supreme Court lawyer for tax evasion

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) – As a lawyer, Thomas Goldstein regularly argued cases before the Supreme Court and published a popular blog about the nation’s highest court. Unbeknownst to friends and colleagues, Goldstein also became an ultra-high-stakes poker player who won tens of millions of dollars but racked up huge gambling debts.

The secretive side of Goldstein’s life has become the focus of a six-week trial in Maryland for a tax evasion case against the SCOTUSblog co-founder. His conviction a year ago sent shockwaves through the legal community in the nation’s capital, where Goldstein argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023.

As the trial closed Wednesday, Justice Department prosecutor Sean Beaty told jurors that Goldstein is one of the smartest and most skilled lawyers to ever argue a case in the high court.

“He’s not a dummy. He’s a willful tax cheat,” Beaty said during closing arguments in the case.

Defense attorney Jonathan Kravis said the government, in its rush to justice, “blindly” accepted the accountant’s “made-up story” about Goldstein’s gambling activities and failed to adequately investigate the case.

“Not even close,” Kravis told the judges. “Tom Goldstein is innocent.”

U.S. District Judge Lydia K. Grigsby said Thursday that she will instruct jurors on the trial laws before they begin deliberations.

The trial, which began Jan. 12, included testimony from “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player who enlisted Goldstein’s help in recovering gambling debts from a billionaire. Goldstein also took the stand and testified in his own defense.

Goldstein is charged with 16 counts of tax evasion and aiding and abetting the preparation of false tax returns. Prosecutors say he failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars in gambling earnings; withdrew money from his law firm, Goldstein & Russell, to pay off gambling debts; and falsely deduct gambling debts as business expenses.

“This was a textbook tax evasion scheme,” Beatty said. “And Mr. Goldstein executed that almost flawlessly.”

Goldstein has denied any wrongdoing and says he repeatedly instructed his law firm’s staff and accountants to accurately describe his personal expenses. In a 2014 email, he told a firm employee that “we always play perfectly by the rules.”

Goldstein knows he should have paid closer attention to his firm’s finances and admits he made “innocent mistakes” on his tax returns, his attorney said. But he did not cheat on his taxes or knowingly make false statements on his tax returns, Kravis told jurors.

He said, ‘A mistake is not a crime.

Goldstein is also accused of lying to IRS agents and hiding gambling debts from his accountants, employees and mortgage lenders. He left $15 million in gambling debt from mortgage loan applications while looking for a new home in Washington, D.C. with his wife in 2021, he is charged.

According to BT, Goldstein earned nearly $50 million in poker winnings in 2016, including about $22 million he won playing in Asia. Prosecutors said the tax evasion scheme “fell apart” when another gambler, feeling duped by Goldstein, notified the IRS about the 2016 debt.

The indictment also alleges Goldstein improperly paid salaries to his law firm and provided health insurance to four women with whom he had romantic relationships between 2016 and 2022. He met three women on a “sugar daddy” dating website. He met the fourth at a poker game where he was hired to work as a server and masseuse.

Prosecutors said the women acted as frauds and did little or no work for Goldstein’s firm. In the indictment, he claimed to have evaded taxes by treating the woman’s salary and healthcare premiums as business expenses.

Goldstein’s lawyers accused prosecutors of improperly presenting “lurid” evidence to grand jurors about his romantic relationships with women. Days before Goldstein’s indictment last January, his lawyers accused Justice Department officials of rushing to bring the case against him before the change in the president’s administration.

“This meandering quest for guilt appears to have been motivated in large part by personal animosity toward Mr. Goldstein,” defense attorneys wrote in a letter 10 days before his initial indictment.

Goldstein was part of the legal team that represented Democrat Al Gore in his Supreme Court case in the 2000 election that was ultimately won by Republican President George W. Bush. In November 2024, after learning that he was under investigation but before he was indicted, Goldstein wrote a guest essay for The New York Times in which he advocated ending criminal charges against Republican President Donald Trump.

“Although this idea will pain my fellow Democrats, all cases must be abandoned,” he wrote after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.

Prosecutors wanted jurors to hear some of what Goldstein recently told The New York Times Magazine about his criminal case. Goldstein said his wife, who co-founded SCOTUSblog with him, knew nothing about his gambling or relationships with other women.

“I’ve just lived this completely isolated life,” he told journalist Jeffrey Toobin.