By Mike Scarcella
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A U.S. jury on Wednesday convicted prominent Washington lawyer Thomas Goldstein of tax and financial crimes tied to his side career as a high-stakes poker player, a stunning fall for a man who was one of the top U.S. appellate attorneys and often argued cases at the Supreme Court.
The 12-person jury announced the verdict on the third day of deliberations after seven weeks of a trial in the Washington suburb of Greenbelt, Maryland. Goldstein was indicted last year after federal prosecutors accused him of failing to report millions of dollars in poker winnings, lying on mortgage loan documents and making improper payments through his former law firm Goldstein & Russell.
The jury found Goldstein guilty of 12 of the 16 counts he faced, acquitting him of some charges of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns.
Goldstein and a lead prosecutor in the case, Adeyemi Adenrele, declined to comment after the trial.
Prosecutors have not said what sentence they will seek for Goldstein. He faces a maximum prison term of five years for tax evasion, up to 30 years for his alleged false statements to mortgage lenders, and additional potential prison time for assisting in the preparation of false tax returns and willful failure to pay taxes. Judges are not required to adhere to sentencing guidelines.
STAR LAWYER JUGGLED BIG-STAKES POKER
Goldstein argued more than 40 cases at the Supreme Court and co-founded the legal news website SCOTUSblog, rising to become a star of the elite Supreme Court bar before retiring from his practice in 2023.
His indictment surprised Washington’s legal community, and the trial revealed the depth of his involvement in the big-money global poker circuit. Prosecutors said Goldstein won more than $26 million in a single series of matches in late 2016, and accused him of illegally concealing poker winnings and debts on financial documents.
The central issue for the jury was whether Goldstein willfully violated federal tax and mortgage laws. He pleaded not guilty and blamed any financial reporting errors on an overreliance on his advisers and accountants.
Testifying in his own defense at trial, Goldstein told jurors he should have paid more attention to his tax returns and to his law firm’s finances but said he did not intentionally violate any laws.
“The mistakes, responsibility for those tax years is mine. I may end up continuing to pay for this for a long time,” Goldstein testified. “That’s my responsibility. It’s just very different from whether I committed a crime.”
Prosecutors described him as a meticulous lawyer who was well aware of his duty to disclose his gambling winnings and losses.
Sean Beaty, a lead prosecutor who questioned Goldstein on the witness stand, portrayed him as a liar who deceived his wife and others about the scope of his poker activities.
Beaty detailed for jurors Goldstein’s lavish spending on expensive watches, cars and apartments. “Poker. Travel. Cars. Watches. All while you owed millions of dollars to the IRS,” Beaty said.
Goldstein testified that he had regrets about his priorities but said his personal spending on property while he owed taxes was not illegal.
Among the witnesses who testified during the trial was actor Tobey Maguire, who starred in 2002’s “Spider-Man” and other films. Maguire, who is not accused of wrongdoing, told jurors he hired Goldstein in 2020 to try to recover more than $7 million that a Texas businessman allegedly owed the actor in a poker debt.
Goldstein’s legal work helped Maguire recover the money. Maguire testified that Goldstein had him route his $500,000 legal fee to a third party rather than pay it directly to him.
The original indictment included allegations involving payments to women with whom Goldstein was having extramarital relationships, but the judge later threw out a charge relating to those claims.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Will Dunham)
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