Tom Goldstein Says Prosecutors Withheld Exculpatory Material

Tom Goldstein, the high-profile lawyer on trial for criminal tax and loan false statement charges, claims the government failed to turn over “critical exculpatory evidence.”

He wants jurors to be told about the discovery violation and that they may draw an adverse inference from the government’s failure to produce the materials, according to a motion filed on Monday in the US District Court for the District of Maryland.

Goldstein also wants to be able to make a “brief, supplemental opening statement” to question the government’s lead case agent about the failure to produce the material, and for the court to prevent the government from eliciting any testimony that his outside accounting firm, GRF CPAs & Advisors, may have conducted monthly bank account reconciliations with his law firm’s office managers.

The evidence in question is email correspondence between a GRF accountant and the government’s lead case agent. It was produced to Goldstein’s team Jan. 20 by GRF, pursuant to a subpoena.

If the materials had been timely disclosed, they would have constituted a key part of the defense’s trial preparation, and Goldstein could have used it for the opening and while examining witnesses, the motion said.

The government accuses Goldstein of, among other things, committing tax evasion and filing false returns by mischaracterizing a handful of personal payments from the firm’s bank account as business expenses.

The previously undisclosed email “thoroughly undermines that contention in two respects,” the motion said.

First, the case agent “expressly states that the government cannot find documents in the GRF production showing that Goldstein & Russell reviewed the classification of the relevant firm expenditures.”

Goldstein said that’s because “no such document exists,”

The email from the GRF accountant responding to the agent also states that his communications about the classification of firm expenditures would have been with the firm office managers and not with Goldstein. The accountant also said that GRF maintained a Quickbooks file for the firm and that GRF was responsible for “doing transaction coding monthly.”

The statements undermine the allegation that Goldstein was responsible for the erroneously classified transactions, the motion said.

The defense said it had notified the government of the Brady violation within hours of receiving the production and asked it to confirm in writing that it had reviewed “the emails and text messages of all law enforcement agents related to this case” for further Brady materials.

The following day, the government produced 110 emails between the same special agent and “various witnesses,” mostly about scheduling interviews.

The productions didn’t include any correspondence from other members of the prosecution team or any texts or other non-email communications, so the defense sent a follow-up request Jan. 23 asking the government to review its records for those materials.

“To date, the government has failed to do so,” the motion said.

The motion asks the Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby to order the government to state whether it has “searched the emails, text messages, and messaging apps of all law enforcement agents who worked on this case for discoverable communications” by Tuesday morning.

The start of the third week of his trial has been delayed due to the winter storm. The courthouse was closed Monday and will be closed Tuesday.

Goldstein is represented by Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.

The case is United States v. Goldstein, D. Md., No. 8:25-cr-00006, motion filed 1/26/26.