A-list actor Tobey Maguire testified on Wednesday within the legal tax trial of Tom Goldstein concerning the time he employed the embattled lawyer to gather a multi-million-dollar poker debt from a “Texas Businessman.” That businessman was revealed to be billionaire banker Andy Beal, a longtime poker participant whose heads-up escapades are well-documented.
Maguire, a witness for the prosecution, advised jurors in Maryland he had employed Goldstein to get better a $7.8 million playing debt — Maguire’s share of $15.6 million he received off Beal in a December 2019 poker match. Bloomberg Legislation reported that Beal was the billionaire in query.
Learn Extra Concerning the Tom Goldstein Trial
Beal Tried to Settle Poker Debt
The testimony from Maguire, finest identified for his function within the 2002 blockbuster Spider-Man, got here because the trial entered its third week.
In response to Reuters, Maguire testified that he met Goldstein by “poker circles” and paid him $500,000 in authorized charges for serving to him reach recovering the poker debt.
The indictment in opposition to Goldstein provides perception into the high-stakes poker match between Maguire and Beal, which befell in Dallas in December 2019. It alleges that Goldstein beat Beal for $15.6 million and that Beal “did not well timed pay the Actor (Maguire) and the facet bettors — to whom the Texas Businessman (Beal) individually owed lots of of hundreds of {dollars} on the facet bets.”
“The Texas Businessman’s failure to pay the Actor continued into 2021, though within the interim the Texas Businessman proposed to the Actor and the facet bettors a settlement of his poker money owed that concerned paying an quantity considerably lower than what was really owed,” the indictment reads.
Maguire refused to conform to the discount and employed Goldstein to function his authorized consultant to gather the fee. After recovering the debt, Maguire paid Goldstein a $500,000 authorized payment and wired the fee to California actual property mogul Bob Safai to pay down Goldstein’s poker debt.
In cross-examination, Maguire advised jurors it is not unusual within the poker world for such transactions to go undocumented, Bloomberg Legislation reported.
Beal’s heads-up matches are the stuff of legend and are documented within the basic poker e-book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Contained in the Richest Poker Recreation of All Time. The e-book tells the story of Beal coming to Las Vegas seeking the most important poker video games and battling a crew of elite poker gamers that included Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Jen Harman and Ted Forrest.
Beal has additionally reportedly performed in opposition to fellow billionaire Alec Gores, who testified earlier within the trial and who Goldstein beat for over $26 million in 2016.
Excessive-Stakes Poker Professional Testifies
The third week of the trial has additionally featured testimony from high-stakes poker participant Vivek Rajkumar, who has over $8 million in Hendon Mob earnings and completed fifth within the 2019 Triton Million for Charity for $3.6 million.
Rajkumar testified to successful between $200,000 and $300,000 in poker matches with Goldstein, in keeping with Reuters, whereas Bloomberg Legislation reported that the poker professional gave Goldstein a $200,000 short-term mortgage in March 2020.
Additionally this week, prosecutors subpoenaed New York Occasions journalists Jeffrey Toobin and Rudy Lee over a function story and tell-all interview with Goldstein printed in December 2025.
In a movement to quash the subpoenas obtained and reviewed by PokerNews, an lawyer for Toobin and Lee wrote that the subpoenas pose a “critical intrusion into the newsgathering course of that may chill future journalism.”
The costs in opposition to Goldstein embrace tax evasion, falsifying tax returns, failing to pay taxes, and making false statements to 2 separate mortgage lenders. The trial is predicted to wrap up in mid-February.
Connor Richards
Senior Editor U.S.
