Summary
The tax-evasion trial of Thomas Goldstein, a Supreme Court lawyer and co-founder of SCOTUSblog who later became a high-stakes poker player, moved into closing arguments in Maryland as the government and defense presented competing narratives of his conduct.
Prosecutor Sean Beaty told jurors that Goldstein’s legal career and public profile did not match the approach he took with his taxes, arguing that the case shows more than mistakes. Beaty said Goldstein executed what he described as a tax-evasion scheme “nearly flawlessly,” and he urged jurors to find that Goldstein acted willfully, calling him “a willful tax cheat.”
Defense attorney Jonathan Kravis challenged that characterization and accused prosecutors of moving too quickly in building their case. Kravis told jurors that the government, in a rush to judgment, “blindly” accepted an accountant’s “made-up story” about Goldstein’s gambling activities, and he told the panel that “Tom Goldstein is innocent.” Kravis also told jurors that Goldstein knew his tax filings required attention but that he did not cheat on his taxes or knowingly make false statements.
Goldstein is charged with 16 counts, including tax-evasion charges and allegations involving the preparation of false tax returns. Prosecutors say he failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars in gambling income, diverted money from his law firm, Goldstein & Russell, to pay gambling debts, and falsely deducted gambling debts as business expenses. They also accuse him of lying to IRS agents and hiding his gambling debts from his accountants, employees and mortgage lenders.
During the trial that started on Jan. 12, jurors heard testimony that included Tobey Maguire, who prosecutors said is an avid poker player and who enlisted Goldstein’s help in recovering a gambling debt from a billionaire. The case also included testimony from Goldstein himself as he took the stand in his own defense.
Beaty told jurors that the tax evasion scheme “fell apart” after another gambler, claiming to have been cheated by Goldstein, notified the IRS about a 2016 debt owed to the attorney. Prosecutors also said Goldstein raked in approximately $50 million in poker winnings in 2016, including roughly $22 million won playing in Asia, according to Beaty.
The government’s allegations extend beyond gambling income to how Goldstein used his law firm while he pursued romantic relationships, according to prosecutors and the indictment. The indictment accuses him of using the firm to improperly pay salaries and provide health insurance to four women with whom he was having or pursuing relationships between 2016 and 2022. Prosecutors said Goldstein met three women on a “sugar daddy” dating website and met the fourth at a poker game where she was hired as a server and masseuse, and they said the women had sham jobs and performed little or no work for the firm.
Goldstein’s defense disputed prosecutors’ presentation of that evidence. The defense accused prosecutors of improperly presenting “lurid” evidence about his romantic relationships to grand jurors and argued that officials rushed the case as political leadership changed. A letter from his attorneys before his indictment last January accused Justice Department officials of rushing to bring a case before the change in presidential administrations, according to the trial record summarized in court.
Goldstein has denied any wrongdoing. Through his lawyers, he has said he repeatedly instructed his law firm’s staff and accountants to correctly characterize his personal expenses, and prosecutors acknowledged that the case involves how those expenses were treated on tax filings. His attorney also said Goldstein admitted he made “innocent mistakes” on his tax returns, according to the government account summarized during closing arguments, while the defense argued “A mistake is not a crime.”
As jurors prepare to deliberate after the judge’s instructions, U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby said she will instruct jurors on Thursday on the laws governing the case before they begin their deliberations. The trial’s closing statements also drew on Goldstein’s recent public writing: prosecutors sought jurors to hear some of what Goldstein told The New York Times Magazine about his own criminal case, including his account that his wife, who co-founded SCOTUSblog with him, did not know anything about his gambling or relationships.
Goldstein has argued that his conduct was treated as something other than the careful accounting he said he directed. In a 2014 email cited during the trial, he told a firm employee that “we always play completely by the rules,” and in testimony and arguments described in court, his lawyers told jurors that he should have been attentive to his firm’s finances but did not cheat on his taxes or knowingly make false statements.