GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — As a lawyer, Thomas Goldstein routinely 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 a high-stakes poker player who racked up tens of millions of dollars in winnings, but racked up staggering gambling debt.
The secret side of Goldstein’s life was at the center of a six-week Maryland tax evasion trial against the SCOTUSblog co-founder. His indictment 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 wrapped up Wednesday, Justice Department prosecutor Sean Beaty told jurors that Goldstein is one of the smartest and most accomplished lawyers to ever argue a case before the high court.
“He’s not a fool. He’s a willful tax cheat,” Beaty said during closing arguments.
Defense attorney Jonathan Kravis said the government, in a rush to judgment, “blindly” accepted an accountant’s “made-up story” about Goldstein’s gambling activities and failed to adequately investigate the case.
“Not even close,” Kravis told jurors. “Tom Goldstein is innocent.”
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby said she will instruct jurors Thursday on the laws governing the case before they begin deliberations.
The trial, which began Jan. 12, included testimony from “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player who sought Goldstein’s help in recovering a gambling debt from a billionaire. Goldstein also took the stand and testified in his own defense.
Goldstein is charged with 16 counts, including charges of tax evasion and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns. Prosecutors say he failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars in gambling earnings; embezzled money from his law firm, Goldstein & Russell, to pay gambling debts; and gambling debts falsely deducted as business expenses.
“It was a manual tax evasion scheme,” Beaty said. “And Mr. Goldstein executed that almost flawlessly.”
Goldstein has denied any wrongdoing and says he repeatedly instructed his law firm staff and accountants to properly characterize his personal expenses. In a 2014 email, he told a company employee that “we always play completely by the rules.”
Goldstein knows he should have paid more attention to his firm’s finances and admits he made “innocent mistakes” on his tax returns, his lawyer said. But he did not cheat on his taxes or knowingly make false statements on his tax returns, Kravis told jurors.
“A mistake is not a crime,” he said.
Goldstein is also accused of lying to IRS agents and hiding his gambling debts from accountants, employees and mortgage lenders. He omitted a $15 million gambling debt from his mortgage applications while he was looking for a new home in Washington, DC, with his wife in 2021, his indictment alleges.
Goldstein racked up about $50 million in poker winnings in 2016, including about $22 million he earned playing in Asia, according to Beaty. The prosecutor said the tax evasion scheme “collapsed” when another player, feeling cheated by Goldstein, notified the IRS about a 2016 debt owed to the lawyer.
The indictment also accuses Goldstein of using his law firm to improperly pay wages and provide health insurance to four women with whom he had or pursued romantic relationships between 2016 and 2022. He met three of the women on a “sugar daddy” dating site that connects men with young women seeking financial support. She met her fourth at a poker game, where she was hired to work as a server and masseuse.
Prosecutors said the women held sham jobs and did little or no work for Goldstein’s firm. The indictment alleges he evaded taxes by treating the women’s wages and health care premiums as business expenses.
Goldstein’s lawyers accused prosecutors of improperly presenting “playful” evidence about his romantic relationships with women to grand jurors. Days before Goldstein’s indictment in January, his lawyers accused Justice Department officials of rushing to file a case against him before the change of presidential administrations.
“This itinerant pursuit of a crime appears to be motivated in large part by personal animosity toward Mr. Goldstein,” defense attorneys wrote in a letter dated 10 days before his initial indictment.
Goldstein was part of the legal team that represented Democrat Al Gore in the Supreme Court litigation over the 2000 election, ultimately won by Republican President George W. Bush. In November 2024, after learning he was being investigated but before being charged, Goldstein wrote an essay for The New York Times in which he advocated dropping the criminal cases against Republican President Donald Trump.
“While this idea will pain my fellow Democrats, all cases should be dropped,” 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 own criminal case. Goldstein said his wife, who co-founded SCOTUSblog with him, knew nothing about his gambling or relationships with other women.
“We had a completely separate life,” he told journalist Jeffrey Toobin.