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A judge ordered Thomas Goldstein to serve 6 years behind bars without the possibility of parole plus five years of supervised release thereafter.
He is also ordered to pay $3.1 million in restitution.
A jury found him guilty of 12 counts that included tax evasion.
Goldstein ran SCOTUSBlog and had argued 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023 at age 52.
CHEVY CHASE, Md (Gambling911.com) - A high stakes poker player and Supreme Court litigator indicted in January 2025 for taking part in a multimillion-dollar scheme to evade federal income taxes and use money from his law firm to cover gambling debts was sentenced to 6 years behind bars this week.
Thomas Goldstein, who also published the popular SCOTUSblog, had asked U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby to spare him from a prison sentence. Instead, he was handed down the 6-year sentence and a 5-year supervised release after his prison term. Additionally, Goldstein was ordered to pay over $3.1 million in restitution. He is not eligible for parole.
A jury found Goldstein guilty of 12 of 16 counts, including eight felonies, after a six-week trial that ended in February. Jurors convicted Goldstein 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.
“Spider-Man” star and avid poker player Tobey Maguire testified during Goldstein’s trial that he had sought his assistance in helping him to recover a gambling debt from a billionaire.
Goldstein was residing in Chevy Chase, Maryland since his indictment. In addition to runing the SCOTUSblog, he had argued 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023 at age 52.
Goldstein was also an avid poker player. Though not listed within the Hendon Mob database, he was known to take part in private, ultra-high-stakes cash games with high-profile players and business figures
Prosecutors said Goldstein also submitted false applications to two lenders when seeking a mortgage for a $2.6 million house in Washington, omitting from one more than $14 million he owed at the time. He also had his firm pay salaries and health insurance premiums for women with whom he had personal relationships, but who did little or no work for the firm, according to the indictment.
The allegations in the indictment span seven years, from 2016 to 2022, a period in which Goldstein was regularly appearing in front of the nation’s highest court.
In 2016, for example, Goldstein understated his gambling winnings by $3.9 million, the indictment said.
Two years later, he returned from Macau to a Washington-area airport with nearly $1 million in cash in a duffel bag. Although he acknowledged to a customs officer that the cash represented gambling winnings, he failed to report the money on his tax return for that year, the indictment said.
In 2020 and 2021, he denied on his tax filings making any trades in cryptocurrency, despite more than $10 million in such transactions, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors had been seeking an eight-year sentence.
“His motivation was singular: pure, unrelenting greed,” prosecutors wrote. “Whether funneling gambling income through offshore bank accounts, shaving millions off his true law firm income, or lying to his lenders, Goldstein’s crimes always sought to advance and maintain his exorbitant lifestyle, replete with Bentleys, globe-trotting vacations, and a $200,000 watch.”
Prosecutors say Goldstein’s crimes were motivated by “pure, uninhibited greed” and his “obvious disdain for the tax system.”
“We can and should expect more from every attorney and officer of the court — let alone one of Goldstein’s status,” they wrote.
Goldstein’s attorneys argued that sparing him from prison would allow him to repay debts and address his severe addiction to gambling.
“He should be retiring with significant life savings or, if he wanted to, continuing to practice law at the highest levels,” defense lawyers wrote. “Instead, he has spent many years gambling with money he didn’t have, and gambling away money that he won, to the detriment of himself and his loved ones.”
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
