A prominent Supreme Court litigator, Thomas Goldstein, was sentenced on Friday to six years in prison for evading a multimillion-dollar IRS tax debt and engaging in mortgage fraud. Goldstein, 56, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, co-founded SCOTUSblog and argued over 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023 at age 52.
Background
Goldstein was a member of Democrat Al Gore’s legal team in the Supreme Court litigation over the 2000 election ultimately won by Republican President George W. Bush. Many friends and colleagues didn’t know the extent of Goldstein’s gambling until his January 2025 indictment, which sent shock waves through the legal community in Washington, D.C.
A jury found Goldstein guilty of 12 of 16 counts, including eight felonies, after a six-week trial that ended in February. Jurors convicted him of one count of tax evasion, four counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns, four counts of willfully failing to pay taxes and three counts of mortgage fraud.
Trial and Testimony
The trial in Greenbelt, Maryland, included testimony by “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player who enlisted Goldstein’s help in recovering a gambling debt from a billionaire. Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of just over eight years for Goldstein.
They say he concealed more than $25 million in income between 2016 and 2023, depriving the federal government of over $9.5 million in unpaid taxes. “His motivation was singular: pure, unrelenting greed,” prosecutors wrote.
Goldstein’s attorneys argued that sparing him from prison would allow him to repay debts and address his severe addiction to gambling. He maintains that his conduct, while self-destructive, wasn’t illegal.
Prosecutors say Goldstein diverted money from his law firm to pay gambling debts and falsely deducted gambling debts as business expenses. Goldstein also was accused of lying to IRS agents and hiding his gambling debts from his accountants, employees and mortgage lenders.
Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
