Prominent attorney Tom Goldstein, who runs a popular Supreme Court-focused blog named SCOTUSblog, is the subject of a major indictment after failing to pay his taxes. He allegedly evaded paying federal income taxes for several years through an elaborate scheme that saw him take millions of dollars from his law firm to pay for high-stakes poker game debts.
the action sometimes reaching tens of millions of dollars
The man who has argued over 40 cases in front of the US Supreme Court allegedly committed fraud from 2016 until 2022 and faces 22 charges. The 54-year-old hid the extent of his gambling losses and didn’t report any of his poker winnings when filing tax forms. He played in places like Asia and Beverly Hills, with the action sometimes reaching tens of millions of dollars.
On one occasion, customs officers questioned him when he arrived at an airport in Washington from Macau with a duffel bag containing almost $1m in cash. He told the officer it was gambling winnings, although he didn’t report the earnings on his tax return.
Goldstein also allegedly created fake jobs for at least a dozen females whom he was courting, paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing nothing. Prosecutors also claim that Goldstein submitted false mortgage applications, failing to tell the lender on one occasion that his debts totaled $14m.
