The saga of poker playing Supreme Court litigator (and, for the attorneys who read this, SCOTUSblog founder) Tom Goldstein continues. Mr. Goldstein was arrested late yesterday, and will be spending his time (at least for a while) at ClubFed while he awaits trial on 22 counts of tax fraud related to allegedly not claiming his poker winnings on his tax returns while taking poker losses as a business expense.
Mr. Goldstein is alleged to have moved millions of dollars in cryptocurrency (after supposedly having a negative net worth) from wallets he didn’t disclose (at the time of requesting bail). (Mr. Goldstein denies these allegations.) Separately, he’s allegedly attempting to prevent a potential witness from assisting in the investigation (another “Don’t try this yourself”–if true).
US Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan ordered Goldstein to be detained, noting:
I find…that there is clear and convincing evidence of a violation of pretrial release conditions (not telling Pretrial about two cryptocurrency wallets and transferring funds without prior Pretrial approval) and that Mr. Goldstein has violated his release conditions. 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. Mr. Goldstein is unable and/or unlikely to abide by any [conditions of release] at this time.
Ouch. But assuming the allegations (of breaking the previous conditions of release) are true, Mr. Goldstein has only himself to blame. Not disclosing material information when you know you’re being scrutinized is not a good idea.
I don’t know if the Goldstein case will rise to the level of Wesley Snipes saga of over a decade ago, but it’s looking that way today.