{"id":108349,"date":"2025-02-13T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T00:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/02\/13\/tom-goldstein-is-free-for-now\/"},"modified":"2025-02-13T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T00:46:08","slug":"tom-goldstein-is-free-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/02\/13\/tom-goldstein-is-free-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Goldstein Is Free! For Now."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been a whirlwind week for the SCOTUSblog co-founder: arrested<\/a> on Monday, banished to federal lockup<\/a> on Tuesday, and now free on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Goldstein, the Supreme Court litigator charged with a number of tax and fraud claims stemming from an alleged second life as a high-stakes poker fiend<\/a>, will resume his prior scheduled release with several additional caveats covering his use of electronic devices. IPPC, which is like ExamSoft but for proctoring pretrial defendants, will have its software installed on his devices to remotely monitor his computer activity. He will also have to report all cryptocurrency wallets he \u201cowns, has access to, and\/or controls\u201d including \u201chard wallets and soft wallets\u201d (whether it\u2019s stored on hardware or software for the folks unfamiliar with fake money).<\/p>\n

The focus on cryptocurrency is the story of Goldstein\u2019s week, having gone to jail after prosecutors deemed him a flight risk upon discovering some\u00a0$8 million in crypto and transfers involving $6 million of it all while he was pleading poverty as a pro se in an effort to convince the court to let him use his house \u2014 which the indictment identifies as a product of mortgage fraud \u2014 to hire lawyers. <\/p>\n

Now represented by Munger Tolles, Goldstein argued that those wallets didn\u2019t belong to him and the government couldn\u2019t prove he did anything but send money to them in the past. Emails like \u201ctom need to wire USDC to me, please give him a address,\u201d Goldstein argued do not establish that he owned the wallets involved in these transactions and, if anything, proved that he didn\u2019t because \u2014 basically \u2014 \u201cIf Mr. Goldstein shared ownership of the wallet, then
there would have been no need for the individual requesting the payment to instruct [REDACTED] to \u2018give\u2019 Mr. Goldstein \u2018a address\u2019 to send the payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That proved enough for Chief Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan to grant Goldstein\u2019s release with assurances that no one would be blindsided by additional crypto transactions. It goes without saying that the revised order includes an edict that the defendant not \u201caccess, receive, send, and\/or transfer any cryptocurrencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, for now, Goldstein will have to put off any nascent jailhouse lawyer aspirations.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Tom Goldstein Is Free! For Now.<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been a whirlwind week for the SCOTUSblog co-founder: arrested<\/a> on Monday, banished to federal lockup<\/a> on Tuesday, and now free on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Goldstein, the Supreme Court litigator charged with a number of tax and fraud claims stemming from an alleged second life as a high-stakes poker fiend<\/a>, will resume his prior scheduled release with several additional caveats covering his use of electronic devices. IPPC, which is like ExamSoft but for proctoring pretrial defendants, will have its software installed on his devices to remotely monitor his computer activity. He will also have to report all cryptocurrency wallets he \u201cowns, has access to, and\/or controls\u201d including \u201chard wallets and soft wallets\u201d (whether it\u2019s stored on hardware or software for the folks unfamiliar with fake money).<\/p>\n

The focus on cryptocurrency is the story of Goldstein\u2019s week, having gone to jail after prosecutors deemed him a flight risk upon discovering some\u00a0$8 million in crypto and transfers involving $6 million of it all while he was pleading poverty as a pro se in an effort to convince the court to let him use his house \u2014 which the indictment identifies as a product of mortgage fraud \u2014 to hire lawyers. <\/p>\n

Now represented by Munger Tolles, Goldstein argued that those wallets didn\u2019t belong to him and the government couldn\u2019t prove he did anything but send money to them in the past. Emails like \u201ctom need to wire USDC to me, please give him a address,\u201d Goldstein argued do not establish that he owned the wallets involved in these transactions and, if anything, proved that he didn\u2019t because \u2014 basically \u2014 \u201cIf Mr. Goldstein shared ownership of the wallet, then
there would have been no need for the individual requesting the payment to instruct [REDACTED] to \u2018give\u2019 Mr. Goldstein \u2018a address\u2019 to send the payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That proved enough for Chief Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan to grant Goldstein\u2019s release with assurances that no one would be blindsided by additional crypto transactions. It goes without saying that the revised order includes an edict that the defendant not \u201caccess, receive, send, and\/or transfer any cryptocurrencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, for now, Goldstein will have to put off any nascent jailhouse lawyer aspirations.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong> 2<\/a>Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a whirlwind week for the SCOTUSblog co-founder: arrested on Monday, banished to federal lockup on Tuesday, and now free on Thursday. Goldstein, the Supreme Court litigator charged with a number of tax and fraud claims stemming from an alleged second life as a high-stakes poker fiend, will resume his prior scheduled release with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":108350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Headshot-300x200-zTdO5r.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}