tl;dr
Former Supreme Court attorney and SCOTUSblog co-founder, Tom Goldstein, is facing allegations of tax law violations and failure to report cryptocurrency transactions. US federal prosecutors claim that a cryptocurrency wallet associated with Goldstein facilitated approximately $100 million in transfe...
Former Supreme Court attorney and SCOTUSblog co-founder, Tom Goldstein, is facing allegations of tax law violations and failure to report cryptocurrency transactions. US federal prosecutors claim that a cryptocurrency wallet associated with Goldstein facilitated approximately $100 million in transfers, often linked to gambling.
Goldstein denies owning the wallet, stating that he was given its address by another individual. Prosecutors argue that Goldstein's appeal against his bail conditions, including internet monitoring and abstaining from cryptocurrency transactions, should be denied due to his alleged use of unhosted cryptocurrency wallets.
Goldstein's lawyers argue that the charges amount to a failure to check a box on his tax returns. Goldstein had been granted bail but was detained again on February 11, with prosecutors citing flight risk.
Former Supreme Court attorney and alleged tax evader Tom Goldstein had access to a cryptocurrency wallet that channeled $100 million in transfers, according to a new filing from US federal prosecutors. The US originally filed an indictment against Goldstein—who is also known for co-founding the popular SCOTUSblog—on January 16, including counts of violating federal tax laws and failing to report cryptocurrency transactions.
Filed on March 6, the latest submission includes new information regarding the volume of transactions on two unhosted wallets allegedly associated with Goldstein. One of them, referred to only as “935B,” served as a channel through which Goldstein appeared to have received and then sent out payments, often in connection with gambling, prosecutors claim.
According to own expert, the 935B wallet has received and sent approximately $100,000,000 in cryptocurrency between its creation in November 2022 and the present. Goldstein denies that he owns the wallet in question, with his attorneys stating that he had been given its address by another individual, and also pointing out that it processed a withdrawal of 2 million USDT when he was detained on February 11 of this year. US prosecutors take issue with this defense, arguing in their latest filing that even if Goldstein doesn’t control the 935B wallet, he had given its address to a ‘fixer’ in order to receive 500,000 USDC in May 2023.
The filing has been submitted in opposition to a February 27 appeal from Goldstein against his bail conditions, in particular against a condition which requires the monitoring of his “internet capable devices.” Goldstein had originally been granted bail following his indictment in January, but had then been detained on February 11, with prosecutors arguing that he posed a significant flight risk.
Yet Goldstein successfully appealed against his pretrial detention on February 13, with Judge Timothy Sullivan granting bail on the condition that the defendant explicitly disclose all of his assets—including cryptocurrencies—to pretrial services. In granting bail, Judge Sullivan said that, “it now even appears that Mr. Goldstein currently has cryptocurrency accounts – besides the 935B and 54E3 wallets –that he controls, and of which he did not inform his supervising Pretrial Services officer.”
In addition to monitoring his internet usage, the conditions also require Goldstein to abstain from all cryptocurrency transactions. According to the January 16 indictment, the former lawyer had “falsely stated” on his 2020 and 2021 tax returns that “he had not received, sold, sent, exchanged, or otherwise acquired or disposed of any financial interest in any virtual currency – despite the fact that he had engaged in dozens of cryptocurrency transactions totaling over $10 million over those two tax years.”
In a March 10 filing in support of Goldstein’s latest appeal, his lawyers state that the prosecutors’ charges amount to “the allegation that Mr. Goldstein failed to check a box on his tax returns.”
Prior to leaving the legal profession in 2023, Goldstein had argued over 40 cases in the Supreme Court, and was part of the legal team representing Al Gore in the latter’s case with George W. Bush following the 2000 presidential election.