WASHINGTON– A prominent Supreme Court litigator was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for evading a multimillion-dollar tax debt to the IRS and engaging in mortgage fraud, a case that shed light on his secret lifestyle as a high-stakes poker player and featured trial testimony from a Hollywood movie star.

Thomas Goldstein, who also published a popular blog about the nation’s highest court, had asked U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby to spare him a prison sentence. Instead, the judge sentenced Goldstein to five years of supervised release following his prison sentence and ordered him to pay more than $3.1 million in restitution, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland.

Goldstein, 56, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, co-founded SCOTUSblog and argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023 at age 52. He was a member of Democrat Al Gore’s legal team in the Supreme Court litigation over the 2000 election ultimately won by Republican President George W. Bush.

Many friends and colleagues were unaware of the extent of Goldstein’s game until his indictment in January 2025, which shocked the legal community in Washington, DC.

A jury found Goldstein guilty of 12 of 16 counts, including eight felonies, after a six-week trial that ended in February. Jurors convicted him of one count of tax evasion, four counts of aiding and abetting in the preparation of false tax returns, four counts of willful failure to pay taxes and three counts of mortgage fraud.

The trial in Greenbelt, Maryland, included testimony from “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player who enlisted Goldstein’s help to recover a billionaire’s gambling debt.

Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of just over eight years for Goldstein. They say he hid more than $25 million in income between 2016 and 2023, depriving the federal government of more than $9.5 million in unpaid taxes.

“His motivation was singular: pure, relentless greed,” prosecutors wrote. “Whether funneling gambling proceeds through offshore bank accounts, cutting millions from his real law firm’s income or lying to his lenders, Goldstein’s crimes always sought to advance and maintain his exorbitant lifestyle, replete with Bentleys, globe-trotting vacations and a $200,000 watch.”

Goldstein’s lawyers argued that saving him from prison would allow him to pay off his debts and address his serious gambling addiction. He maintains that his conduct, although self-destructive, was not illegal.

“He should retire with significant life savings or, if desired, continue to practice law at the highest levels,” the defense attorneys wrote. “Instead, he has spent many years gambling with money he did not have and wasting the money he earned, to the detriment of himself and his loved ones.”

Prosecutors say Goldstein diverted money from his law firm to pay off gambling debts and falsely deducted gambling debts as business expenses. Goldstein was also accused of lying to IRS agents and concealing his gambling debts from his accountants, employees and mortgage lenders. He omitted a $15 million gambling debt on mortgage loan applications while searching for a new home in Washington, D.C., with his wife in 2021, his indictment alleges.

Goldstein, who testified at his trial, said he repeatedly instructed his law firm’s staff and accountants to correctly characterize his personal expenses. In a 2014 email, he told a company employee that “we always fully comply with the rules.”

Goldstein spent years gambling money he didn’t have, his lawyers say.

“He is not rich enough to withstand the losses of the billionaires he has played against, and he is not good enough at poker to win at the rate of the professionals,” they wrote.

Prosecutors say Goldstein’s crimes were motivated by “pure, uninhibited greed” and his “obvious disdain for the tax system.”

“We can and should expect more from every attorney and court official, let alone one of Goldstein’s caliber,” they wrote.