NOTE: This can be a creating story and shall be up to date as extra info is made accessible.
Famous person legal professional Tom Goldstein was discovered responsible of 12 of 16 counts in a high-profile federal tax trial centered round high-stakes poker matches around the globe the place Goldstein gained and misplaced thousands and thousands in single periods.
The trial of Goldstein, the founding father of SCOTUSblog and probably the most distinguished attorneys in Washington, garnered nationwide media consideration and featured testimony from celebrities, poker professionals and billionaires. Goldstein confronted tax and mortgage fraud costs stemming from ultra-high-stakes poker matches from Asia to Hollywood that produced $50 million in revenue, in addition to later matches that noticed Goldstein shedding $14 million.
Bloomberg Legislation reported Wednesday that jurors in Greenbelt, Maryland had discovered Goldstein responsible on 12 of 16 costs after a number of days of deliberations.
He was discovered responsible on one depend of tax evasion, all 4 counts of willful failure to well timed pay taxes, all three counts of creating false statements to mortgage lenders, and 4 of eight counts of aiding and helping in preparation of a false tax return, per Bloomberg.
Goldstein confronted 16 counts of tax and mortgage fraud associated to poker winnings from between 2016 and 2023 that the US Division of Justice accused him of hiding from his accountants and the IRS. Prosecutors additionally accused Goldstein of diverting authorized charges from his regulation agency to cowl poker money owed and mendacity about these money owed in mortgage functions.
Sentencing remains to be to come back, and Goldstein may face critical jail time on the convicted costs. He faces most penalties of 5 years in jail for the tax evasion cost, one 12 months for every cost of willful failure to pay taxes, three years for every depend of aiding within the preparation of false tax returns, and 30 years for every depend of creating false statements to mortgage lenders.
White collar felony protection legal professional Andrew Bernstein of Fox Rothschild, who has been following the case, advised PokerNews he thinks there may be “no likelihood” Goldstein will get a most sentence. However he does anticipate that Goldstein will serve a while.
“I believe it’s very doubtless he might get just a few years in jail. Nowhere near 30 years,” mentioned Bernstein, who anticipated that Goldstein’s sentencing remains to be months away.
Goldstein declined to remark to PokerNews earlier within the trial. After the decision, Goldstein’s attorneys and US Division of Justice prosecutors didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark by telephone and e-mail.
Closing Arguments Heard in Tom Goldstein’s Trial Over Excessive-Stakes Poker Video games
Testimony From Celebrities, Billionaires & Poker Execs
The January 2025 indictment towards Goldstein rocked the authorized world, the place Goldstein was acknowledged as a prime legal professional who had argued dozens of circumstances earlier than the US Supreme Courtroom. The six-week trial in Maryland featured testimony from dozens of witnesses — together with Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire, who testified about hiring Goldstein to get better thousands and thousands in poker winnings from Texas billionaire Andy Beal.
Earlier this week, PokerNews revealed that Beal was the beforehand unnamed heads-up opponent who Goldstein gained $51.4 million from starting in 2022.
The witnesses, most of whom have been known as by the prosecution, included American billionaire Alec Gores, who advised jurors about shedding $26.4 million in heads-up matches towards Goldstein in 2016; poker professionals Andrew Robl and Keith Gipson, who spoke about to teaching Goldstein; and Rick Salomon of Paris Hilton intercourse tape fame, who, in line with court docket paperwork reviewed by PokerNews, is up round $5 million in his poker dealings with the legal professional.
Different witnesses included accountants, tax specialists, IRS investigators and mortgage lenders, who testified that Goldstein hadn’t reported $15 million in poker money owed on dwelling mortgage functions.
The prosecution painted Goldstein as a reckless gambler and lavish spender who willfully hid poker earnings from his accountants. The protection, in the meantime, argued that Goldstein had relied on the tax experience of his accountants, by no means deliberately hid earnings and had much less playing earnings than the federal government alleged.
Goldstein himself additionally testified, a transfer that shocked onlookers, and denied ever willfully hiding playing winnings, whereas additionally admitting to downplaying his playing money owed on mortgage functions, which he mentioned he did to cover the losses from his spouse.
Through the Feb. 13 cross-examination of IRS Particular Agent Jack McDonald, Goldstein lead legal professional Jonathan Kravis revealed that Goldstein had advised brokers in an interview that his tax bother “all comes right down to a catastrophic f*** up” by his tax preparers.
A type of tax preparers, Walter Deyhle of GRF CPAs & Advisors, testified that Goldstein had not offered him sufficient details about his playing earnings, however later admitted on cross-examination to creating some errors on Goldstein’s tax returns, and to unintentionally making incorrect statements to IRS investigators.
There have been embarrassing moments for Goldstein all through the investigation and trial, together with later-dropped allegations that he held extramarital affairs with a number of girls who have been placed on his regulation agency’s payroll, in addition to lavish spending on luxurious gadgets like a $225,000 Bentley regardless of having an enormous tax invoice.
Goldstein’s attorneys accused the federal government of citing irrelevant private issues in an effort to color him in a foul mild. In a letter despatched to prosecutors forward of the trial, his attorneys complained that witnessed had been requested “about Mr. Goldstein’s sexual habits and proclivities, the small print of his marriage, and his private relationships” and accused the federal government of demanding that third events “produced sexually specific images and movies involving Mr. Goldstein.”
“For sure, these subjects and supplies don’t have anything to do with any attainable principle of felony legal responsibility,” reads the letter dated Jan. 6, 2025. “As a substitute, they mirror an inappropriate, prurient obsession with Mr. Goldstein’s private life.”
Closing Arguments Capped Off Excessive-Profile Trial
Throughout closing arguments, a extremely anticipated second within the high-profile trial, prosecutors advised jurors that the Goldstein lawyer lied to “everybody round him” about his life as as high-stakes poker participant, in line with Reuters.
“Mr. Goldstein might be the neatest particular person on this courtroom,” prosecutor Sean Beaty advised jurors. “Good folks usually do not doc their tax evasion. They conceal it within the tall grass. The crime right here is the concealment.”
Jonathan Kravis, lead legal professional for Goldstein, argued that his consumer had relied on accountants for tax issues and accused the federal government of “blindly” accepting the accountant’s “made-up story” with out adequately investigating, the Related Press reported.
“Tom Goldstein is harmless,” Kravis mentioned.
Learn On-Website Protection of the Tom Goldstein Trial
Excessive-Stakes Purchasers, General Loser in Poker
The trial provided perception into Goldstein’s relationship with consumer and backer Paul Phua, who Goldstein represented in a 2014 unlawful playing case that noticed Phua acquitted, in addition to different high-stakes matches Goldstein performed towards distinguished poker gamers like Dan “Jungleman” Cates, Tony Gregg and Chamath Palihapitiya — names that have been revealed in what prosecutors known as Goldstein’s “secret poker ledger.”
Goldstein’s authorized and poker worlds intertwined in different methods. He represented PokerStars and the Poker Gamers Alliance within the post-Black Friday on-line poker struggle and represented his poker coach Keith Gipson in a playing seizure case that reached to the Supreme Courtroom.
NOTE: PokerNews and PokerStars are each owned by Flutter Leisure.
In a tell-all interview with The New York Instances Journal forward of the trial, Goldstein claimed to have gained $88 million on his heads-up spree, personally clearing round $12 million as 75% went to backers. He later advised jurors he was down over $10 million general in poker, primarily resulting from ring-game losses.
“Enjoying ring poker towards a bunch of individuals requires monumental self-discipline, monumental endurance, and people are simply not issues in poker that I’ve,” Goldstein advised Instances journalist Jeffrey Toobin. “For those who’re taking part in towards eight folks, simply mathematically, the chances that someone has a hand that’s higher than yours are fairly excessive. For those who’re taking part in towards one particular person, you don’t need to be practically as affected person. What’s rewarded is being very aggressive. So heads-up, in essence, is constructed for me.”
The trial additionally provided perception into Goldstein’s poker expertise. Whereas poker professionals have been glad to put money into Goldstein’s heads-up matches, his coach and backer, Andrew Robl, testified that he wouldn’t again Goldstein in full-ring video games.
“He was not a worthwhile participant in ring video games,” Robl advised jurors on Feb. 5. “He usually misplaced.”
Goldstein additionally performed high-stakes poker in years that are not lined within the indictment, which handled the interval from 2016 to 2023. In July 2024, he “misplaced a considerable sum of cash” to Robl at actor Kevin Hart’s birthday bash in Mykonos, Greece.
Goldstein, who has been described as an aggressive and reckless poker participant, had his solely televised poker look in Might 2024, when he infamously mucked the successful hand in a $540,000 pot through the Hustler On line casino Stay Million Greenback Recreation. Over the course of the stream, Goldstein, who wore a masks and did not reveal his identification, misplaced $2.7 million.
Whereas Goldstein’s secret life as an ultra-high-stakes poker participant shocked the authorized world, Goldstein’s closest associates knew all in regards to the poker vice that ultimately to the celebrity lawyer’s felony conviction. A type of associates, social media playboy Dan Bilzerian, wrote in his 2021 autobiography that he had “by no means met anybody with much less respect for cash proportionate to their web value than Tom.”
“He liked the motion, however it was virtually like he subconsciously wished to lose,” Bilzerian mentioned. “I believe he preferred that everybody on the desk liked him a lot, and as a ruthless lawyer, he most likely didn’t get that sort of a heat welcome elsewhere. The extra he misplaced, the happier everybody round him acquired, and I believe he was partially hooked on that feeling, however he was totally hooked on the frenzy of playing.”
Connor Richards
Senior Editor U.S.
