Tom Goldstein, a partner at the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLC, poses for a photo outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010.
Stephen Voss | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A federal judge on Monday ordered leading Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein arrested and held in jail without bail after prosecutors warned that the high-stakes poker player is a “serious” flight risk from his pending criminal tax evasion case.
Prosecutors said that the SCOTUSblog publisher Goldstein should have his bail revoked because he failed to disclose to Pretrial Services officers after his recent indictment that he controls two cryptocurrency wallets through which he received more than $8 million last week.
Over the last five days Goldstein “sent more than $6 million of cryptocurrency” from those wallets, despite having been ordered by a judge not to transfer any funds without approval, prosecutors wrote in a filing in Maryland federal court.
Prosecutors also said that shortly after he became of the federal criminal investigation of his taxes, Goldstein “offered things of value, including cryptocurrency, to a potential witness in the case who had intimate knowledge of his and his law firm’s finances and income.”
That offer “raises the serious concern that [Goldstein’s] recent cryptocurrency transactions may also be used to influence potential witnesses to his crimes,” prosecutors wrote.
Goldstein reportedly denied that he owned or controlled the cryptocurrency accounts during a bail hearing Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“These are not my accounts,” Goldstein told Chief Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan at the hearing, according to Law360.com. “I didn’t engage in these transfers.”
Sullivan in an order later wrote that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Goldstein had violated the conditions of his release.”
“Furthermore, there are no conditions and/or combination of conditions that can be established to reasonably assure compliance given the seriousness of the violations and the Court’s continued concern of risk of flight,” Sullivan said in the order.
“Mr. Goldstein is unable and/or unlikely to abide by any [Conditions of Release] at this time.
Goldstein was indicted in January on federal tax evasion charges that allege he failed to declare millions of dollars in poker winnings and used his law firm’s money to pay his gambling debts.
Goldstein, who has argued before the Supreme Court more than nearly any other attorney in private practice in modern times, is accused of willfully failing to pay more than $5.3 million in taxes.
One of the wallets Goldstein failed to disclose after his indictment in January has been used to send more than $73.6 million and to receive $75.6 million in cryptocurrency since it was first used in November 2022, the filing says.
Although no assets were in the wallet when Goldstein was indicted on Jan. 16, $10 worth of Tether crypto was sent to it on Feb. 4 — six days after his first appearance in court — and an hour later about $8 million worth of Tether was sent to the wallet, the filing says. Within two hours of that, about $6 million in Tether was sent out of the wallet in two separate transactions, the filing said.
The second wallet that Goldstein allegedly failed to disclose to officials after his indictment contained about $242,400 worth of Tether, according to prosecutors. On Feb. 5, the wallet received $1,306.32 in Tether, and a minute later transferred $22,006.84 in Tether out, the filing said.