Tom Goldstein Fights To Sell Home as Tax Trial Looms

The prosecution of prominent Washington lawyer Tom Goldstein has veered into an unusual appellate showdown involving pricey D.C. real estate, the constitutional right to counsel and a high-powered litigation funding firm that is set to be a witness in the case.

Goldstein, formerly a leading member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar and a founder of SCOTUSblog, is facing trial next month in Greenbelt, Maryland on 22 counts of tax evasion and other financial criminal charges allegedly connected to his side career as a big-money poker player.

“As a criminal defendant, I have a Sixth Amendment right to use ‘untainted’ assets that are necessary to pay the costs of my defense. The home itself is not ‘tainted,'” Goldstein said in his Nov. 26 appellate brief.

The government opposes Goldstein’s bid to sell the house, now valued at more than $3 million by real estate listing platforms Redfin and Zillow. In a brief filed Wednesday, prosecutors said the property is indeed tainted because Goldstein made false statements on a loan application related to its purchase.

In any case, the government told the 4th Circuit, the home is being held as collateral for an appearance bond for Goldstein, who was deemed a flight risk by U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby.

Attorneys for Goldstein at Munger, Tolles & Olson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government alleges that Goldstein falsely omitted information on two loan applications by not disclosing more than $15 million in unpaid personal debts and federal taxes. Federal prosecutors have said Goldstein won and lost millions of dollars in individual poker matches and made improper payments through his law firm to cover debts.

After getting turned down for one loan application in March 2021, Goldstein allegedly borrowed more than $5.6 million from a company that invests in litigation and used the funds to buy the Washington home. Goldstein never disclosed his personal debts to the funder, prosecutors said.

Goldstein revealed in his 4th Circuit brief last week that the funder is Parabellum Capital, a top litigation finance firm with offices in New York and Boston with more than $1.5 billion in investments as of last year. Goldstein said Parabellum placed no restrictions on the funds, which he used to buy the D.C. property and pay taxes.

Parabellum said in a statement that it is a witness in Goldstein’s criminal case and that the firm has not been accused of wrongdoing. “A minor part of the case involves small investments Parabellum made several years ago,” the firm said.

Goldstein’s bid to quickly sell the property faces an uphill battle given its connections to his bail conditions, white-collar experts said.

“The facts here are what’s going to be a problem for him,” said Michael Weinstein, who leads the white collar criminal defense practice at law firm Cole Schotz. Weinstein said he was a law school classmate of Goldstein’s at American University, but has no personal relationship to him and is not involved in the case.

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