SCOTUSblog’s Goldstein Facing New Allegations in Criminal Case

Federal prosecutors in Maryland have added allegations against lawyer Tom Goldstein, saying the SCOTUSblog co-founder misused his client trust account to conceal income from the IRS in 2021.

He transferred at least $960,000 in personal funds to his law firm’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account to prevent the taxes before he purchased a new home, prosecutors say.

The revised indictment, entered on the docket on Aug. 8 in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, also adds some further detail related to Goldstein’s alleged false statements to an IRS representative in October 2020.

Goldstein allegedly told a US Customs and Border Protection officer that $968,000 in cash that he was stopped with in October 2018 constituted gambling winnings, and then later told an IRS agent that the money constituted loans.

The indictment now says he also told the IRS representative that gambling winnings he received from “Foreign Gambler 3" in 2018 constituted loans.

The revisions also include new details about representations he allegedly made to a litigation funder when seeking help with tax liabilities and a mortgage loan loan, as well as more specifics about his alleged attempts to “dissuade” a former manager at his law firm from cooperating with federal authorities

Prosecutors also made some apparent corrections.

The original indictment, filed in January, alleged that Goldstein was hired by an unnamed party to help him collect an outstanding gambling debt in 2021, and later diverted the fee payment to cover his outstanding gambling debts. The revised indictment says that happened in 2020.

The new indictment also adjusts the dates and referenced allegations for certain counts, including tax evasion counts for tax years 2016, 2017, and 2018, bringing more recent conduct into their ambit.

For example, the original indictment referenced conduct that occurred from “about January 2016 through in or about March 2018.” It now references conduct going through March 2021.

The revisions come after Goldstein moved to dismiss multiple counts as time-barred.

Although the IOLTA allegation is new, there’s not a corresponding new count. The founder and former owner of STOCUSblog.com still faces four counts of tax evasion, ten counts of assisting the preparation of false tax returns, five counts of willful failure to pay taxes, and three counts of false statements on a loan application.

Goldstein is represented by Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.

The case is United States v. Goldstein, D. Md., No. 8:25-cr-00006, superseding indictment 8/8/25.