Latest / Bloomberg Law / Trump Losses May Cost Taxpayers & Superstar Lawyer Goes to Prison

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Trump Losses May Cost Taxpayers & Superstar Lawyer Goes to Prison · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 2: There's been an unprecedented deluge of hundreds of lawsuits challenging
0:13
Speaker 2: the Trump administration's boundary pushing uses of executive power, increasing
0:19
Speaker 2: the amount of taxpayer money at stake. The US government
0:23
Speaker 2: is on the hook for potentially millions of dollars in
0:26
Speaker 2: legal bills demanded by successful challengers to some of the
0:30
Speaker 2: administration's most controversial executive actions and policies. According to a
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Speaker 2: Bloomberg News analysis of court records, attorneys have sought fees
0:40
Speaker 2: exceeding one hundred thousand dollars in at least ten cases
0:44
Speaker 2: over the past year, totaling more than two point five
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Speaker 2: million dollars. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Zoe Tillman,
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Speaker 2: who's crunched the numbers. So, Zoey, how much could the
0:56
Speaker 2: government be on the hook for legal bills for opposing
1:00
Speaker 2: attorneys who won their cases?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's hard to say. You know, we
1:05
Speaker 3: started with the place where we're at now, which is
1:08
Speaker 3: potentially millions, because we've flagged at least a number of
1:12
Speaker 3: cases where there are outstanding pending requests that total more
1:16
Speaker 3: than two million dollars so far, but that's only in
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Speaker 3: ten cases, and we know that there are a number
1:22
Speaker 3: of cases where the Trump administration has lost in the
1:25
Speaker 3: district court is appealing those losses, and where attorneys have
1:29
Speaker 3: made clear, you know, should we prevail on appeal, an
1:32
Speaker 3: attorney feemotion is coming. And there's always this delay with
1:35
Speaker 3: these types of requests where you can't get paid until
1:39
Speaker 3: litigation is completely over. So we may not see the
1:42
Speaker 3: final dollar amounts tally up until you know, two three
1:47
Speaker 3: years after this early deluge of litigation against the administration.
1:52
Speaker 3: But you know, we're certainly dealing in the realm already
1:55
Speaker 3: of millions of dollars.
1:57
Speaker 2: So tell us about the Equal Access to Justice Act
2:00
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty and what it requires.
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Speaker 3: So the thinking was at the time that you know, individuals,
2:09
Speaker 3: ordinary Americans, small businesses, nonprofits, entities that you know are
2:15
Speaker 3: not deep pocketed, may not be able to hire big
2:18
Speaker 3: law firms and lawyers to vindicate their rights, that they
2:21
Speaker 3: should not be priced out of pursuing would otherwise be
2:25
Speaker 3: legitimate claims and grievances against the government. And thinking by
2:28
Speaker 3: Congress was, you know, if they set limits on who
2:30
Speaker 3: would be eligible to recover their fees, so it's you know,
2:34
Speaker 3: their net worth caps for small businesses. There are employee
2:38
Speaker 3: caps for nonprofits employee caps. So the idea is to
2:42
Speaker 3: keep it to people who entities that you know, are
2:44
Speaker 3: not big corporations that obviously you know, may not need
2:48
Speaker 3: the government to pay back their legal fees. And the
2:51
Speaker 3: thinking is, if you're a prevailing party and the government's
2:54
Speaker 3: position in litigation was not quote substantially justified, which has
2:58
Speaker 3: been interpreted pretty broadly by courts. You know, even if
3:01
Speaker 3: DOJ says we made a good faith argument here, if
3:04
Speaker 3: they were found to have certainly done something obviously unlawful
3:08
Speaker 3: and constitutional, courts have been pretty willing to say, you know,
3:10
Speaker 3: that was not a substantially justified position that you took
3:13
Speaker 3: in this litigation. And the courts can award fees. The
3:17
Speaker 3: amounts tend not to be very high in doing the
3:21
Speaker 3: historical analysis in most cases, setting aside social security and
3:25
Speaker 3: veterans benefits cases of which there are thousands, and that's
3:28
Speaker 3: sort of a different animal from what we're talking about here.
3:31
Speaker 3: Most of the time these fear awards fall below one
3:33
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars, so it's you know, not a lot
3:36
Speaker 3: of money, but for an ordinary everyday person, tens of
3:41
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars if they had to lay out that
3:43
Speaker 3: money to vindicate the rights, is certainly a significant amount
3:46
Speaker 3: of money.
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Speaker 2: So, Zoe, and looking at the list that you have
3:48
Speaker 2: in your story about the requests for fees, the top
3:53
Speaker 2: requests have to do with cases involving research funding cuts,
3:58
Speaker 2: and the nonprofit Association of American Universities is looking for
4:02
Speaker 2: more than one point five million dollars for its attorneys.
4:06
Speaker 2: Of course, one of their attorneys is Paul Clement, the
4:09
Speaker 2: former Solicitor General who's argued more cases before the Supreme
4:13
Speaker 2: Court than anyone else.
4:15
Speaker 3: Right, that's the four cases that deal with the rate
4:19
Speaker 3: that agencies reimburse research institutions for the indirect costs of
4:24
Speaker 3: doing government research. So you know the costs of running
4:27
Speaker 3: these labs of you know, the sort of overhead, not
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Speaker 3: the core funding.
4:33
Speaker 1: For the project.
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Speaker 3: So the agencies have tried to cut that rate down,
4:37
Speaker 3: and research institutions have said, this is the lifeblood. Our
4:40
Speaker 3: ability to function depends on getting reimbursed not just for
4:44
Speaker 3: you know, the hours that we do the experiment or
4:46
Speaker 3: the research, but for the cost of doing business of research.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, those are the four cases by the Association
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Speaker 3: of American Universities where Paul Clement, who is you know,
4:57
Speaker 3: boldface name in legal circles for many years, is among
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Speaker 3: the lawyers, which include other very accomplished lawyers, other big
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Speaker 3: law firms in Washington. But this is some of the
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Speaker 3: highest dollar requests because it has involved these very experienced,
5:11
Speaker 3: veteran Washington lawyers.
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Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, are they looking for
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Speaker 2: five hundred dollars an hour for Paul Clement, because that's
5:18
Speaker 2: sort of a drop in the bucket for him, isn't it.
5:20
Speaker 2: It's not really what he would normally charge. I mean,
5:23
Speaker 2: they charged thousands of dollars, now, that's right.
5:26
Speaker 3: So the Equal Access to Justice Act does set a
5:29
Speaker 3: baseline for fees. Normally, I think the baseline rate is
5:33
Speaker 3: it's like one hundred and twenty five dollars an hour,
5:36
Speaker 3: with wiggle room for cost of living. So I think
5:39
Speaker 3: the actual baseline year to year tends to be closer
5:42
Speaker 3: to two hundred and two hundred and fifty dollars an hour.
5:45
Speaker 3: But the law allows for some discretion if lawyers can say,
5:48
Speaker 3: you know, there was special expertise that they brought. It
5:52
Speaker 3: was extraordinary litigation involving novel questions of law. You know,
5:56
Speaker 3: if it was a heavier lift than your ordinary loss
6:00
Speaker 3: against an agency, there is this ability to ask for
6:03
Speaker 3: higher rates. Now the government will come back sometimes and
6:07
Speaker 3: say those rates are too high. You've put in for
6:10
Speaker 3: working too many hours on this. We don't think that's reasonable.
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Speaker 3: In those cases, they're also arguing that this association is
6:17
Speaker 3: not eligible to get fees, that they were really suing
6:21
Speaker 3: on behalf of their members. The association has said that's
6:24
Speaker 3: not what the standard is. There's litigation about this. So
6:27
Speaker 3: you know, we're seeing some cases where the government is
6:29
Speaker 3: is reaching settlements and acknowledging that there is this law
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Speaker 3: that compels them when they lose in many cases to
6:35
Speaker 3: pay up, but also in some cases exercising their ability
6:40
Speaker 3: back and to say, you know, even if we do
6:42
Speaker 3: have to pay fees, it should not be that much.
6:45
Speaker 2: And so if they can't reach a settlement, a judge
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Speaker 2: will decide on the amount.
6:51
Speaker 3: That's right that I'll decide. You know, were they a
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Speaker 3: prevailing party, was the government's position substantially justified? Are the
6:58
Speaker 3: requested fees reasonable? And then you know, ultimately a judgeable
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Speaker 3: enter and order saying I find the government has to
7:05
Speaker 3: pay you know, yes you have to pay Paul Clement,
7:07
Speaker 3: but only three hundred and fifty dollars an hour, not
7:10
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars an hour. They get into that kind
7:12
Speaker 3: of granular level of this.
7:14
Speaker 2: Now immigration case is the Supreme Court is going to
7:18
Speaker 2: hear a case involving the Equal Access to Justice Act
7:23
Speaker 2: and immigration.
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Speaker 3: That's right. So you know, we've a couple of different
7:26
Speaker 3: buckets here, and that's part of where our estimate of
7:30
Speaker 3: this potentially being millions of dollars at stake also includes
7:34
Speaker 3: these other cases where if you have your standard, you know,
7:37
Speaker 3: I student an agency because they did X with grants
7:40
Speaker 3: and we won and now we get money. Second category
7:43
Speaker 3: is habeas cases where the Trump administration has enacted a
7:48
Speaker 3: very aggressive push to ramp up immigration arrests and deportations,
7:52
Speaker 3: and that has resulted in a concurrent increase explosion really
7:57
Speaker 3: of litigation to try and free people from immigration while
8:00
Speaker 3: they are fighting whether they can be deported, and in
8:04
Speaker 3: cases where the government has lost, where judges have said,
8:07
Speaker 3: you know, you have to release this person, not necessarily
8:10
Speaker 3: that they can't be deported, but you know, the campient custody.
8:13
Speaker 3: Circuits have split about whether that counts as a you know,
8:17
Speaker 3: prevailing party substantially justified or not under the Equal Access
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Speaker 3: to Justice Act. And some courts have awarded fees and
8:26
Speaker 3: the amounts tend to be smaller than the six figure
8:29
Speaker 3: requests that we're seeing in these really high profile cases.
8:32
Speaker 3: But there are a lot of these cases, so you know,
8:35
Speaker 3: the stakes are also high for what the Supreme Court
8:38
Speaker 3: does with this next term. You know, if it's five
8:42
Speaker 3: hundred cases with a couple thousand dollars in each awarded,
8:47
Speaker 3: you can see how the financial stakes there balloons if
8:51
Speaker 3: the court says that they can recover these attorney fees.
8:55
Speaker 3: Now we should say, you know, this court has but
8:58
Speaker 3: a conservative majority has large sided with the government on
9:02
Speaker 3: issues related to immigration. So it does seem like there's
9:05
Speaker 3: an uphill battle for advocates here who are arguing that
9:08
Speaker 3: this law should cover people who successfully sue the government
9:12
Speaker 3: to get out of custody. But it's a big ticket
9:15
Speaker 3: issue on many levels, both in terms of the rights
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Speaker 3: of people in these cases and also the amount of
9:20
Speaker 3: money that is at stake if the government loses.
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Speaker 2: Explain what the judgment fund is and how it's different
9:27
Speaker 2: from EGA.
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Speaker 3: They're mostly separate. EG fees are typically paid by the
9:32
Speaker 3: agency that was sued and that lost, so there are
9:36
Speaker 3: each year, you know, it's analysis of how much each
9:38
Speaker 3: agency has had to pay in EG fees and how
9:41
Speaker 3: many claims they've had to pay out. The judgment fund
9:45
Speaker 3: is sort of separate. When you see the government because
9:50
Speaker 3: you tripped and fell on the national mall and you
9:53
Speaker 3: get hurt because a government employee in a car hit
9:56
Speaker 3: your car, you know you were in an accident, or
9:59
Speaker 3: as we've increasingly seen, you know, cases against the government
10:03
Speaker 3: for damages for certain types of constitutional violations, other types
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Speaker 3: of damage as harms, tourt actions. Those are not EJA cases.
10:14
Speaker 3: And when you get attorney fees for winning against the
10:18
Speaker 3: government in those types of cases or if you reach
10:20
Speaker 3: a settlement, that money typically comes out of the judgment Fund,
10:23
Speaker 3: which is a central pool of money. It's an indefinite,
10:27
Speaker 3: permanent appropriation from Congress that makes money available to the
10:32
Speaker 3: government to pay court judgments, which can include attorney fees.
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Speaker 3: Sometimes there is some overlap depending on how cases are
10:39
Speaker 3: styled against the government, But when we're talking about sort
10:42
Speaker 3: of bread and butter suing agencies for carrying out policies
10:48
Speaker 3: that this administration's opponents can tend or unlawful, or in
10:52
Speaker 3: any administration, when they win attorney fees, it tends to
10:55
Speaker 3: come out of this EJA bucket as opposed to the
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Speaker 3: judgment fund bucket, with the understanding that there is some
11:02
Speaker 3: fuzzying of those lines. Sometimes.
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Speaker 2: I was surprised in your story you also talk about
11:07
Speaker 2: there's a jazz musician who's looking for two hundred and
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Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars in legal fees. Tell us about that case.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So this is a case involving the Kennedy Center
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Speaker 3: in Washington, which is you know, it's not a federal agency.
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Speaker 3: We called it a quasi public institution. It was created
11:25
Speaker 3: as a loving memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy.
11:29
Speaker 3: The board is largely appointed by the President. It receives
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Speaker 3: some federal dollars. There is some degree of federal oversight
11:37
Speaker 3: even though it isn't an agency within the executive branch
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Speaker 3: in the traditional sense. So this case was sort of
11:43
Speaker 3: interesting as a Trump adjacent legal fight that has also
11:47
Speaker 3: now resulted in a fee issue where after the board
11:52
Speaker 3: voted to put Donald Trump's name on the Kennedy Center
11:56
Speaker 3: and to add him to the official name. A number
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Speaker 3: of shows and artists pulled out of performing at the Center,
12:04
Speaker 3: and this musician, who had performed I think a Christmas
12:07
Speaker 3: Eve concert for many years, was one of those artists
12:11
Speaker 3: who withdrew and canceled his performance. So the Kennedy Center
12:15
Speaker 3: suit and he had said at the time there were
12:16
Speaker 3: public statements, you know, in news reports that it was
12:19
Speaker 3: because of this renaming move he used defeated the lawsuit
12:23
Speaker 3: in DC Superior Court, the local court here. Judge found
12:27
Speaker 3: that the Kennedy Center was unlikely to win its breach
12:30
Speaker 3: of contract claim and also that this was what's often
12:33
Speaker 3: referred to as a slap action, and there was an
12:36
Speaker 3: anti slap law where, you know, the court found that
12:40
Speaker 3: they sued this guy specifically because he was exercising his
12:44
Speaker 3: right to advocate on public issues of concerns. Judge tosses
12:47
Speaker 3: the case and he's now arguing his lawyers or arguing
12:50
Speaker 3: that the Kennedy Center is on the hook to pay
12:54
Speaker 3: their legal fees to the tune of more than two
12:56
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Kennedy Center is not represented
12:59
Speaker 3: by the Just Just Department in this instance. It's sort
13:01
Speaker 3: of a it's not quite the same as the other
13:03
Speaker 3: cases that we talk about in the story, but it
13:06
Speaker 3: did seem like this extended universe of when we talk
13:09
Speaker 3: about really the cost of the way this administration has
13:13
Speaker 3: done business and how much of the actions have wound
13:18
Speaker 3: up in court? Can you put a dollar amount on that?
13:20
Speaker 3: And it's a question that I get a lot, and
13:23
Speaker 3: I'm always interested in ways of answering, which is, you know,
13:26
Speaker 3: what is the cost of the way that any given
13:29
Speaker 3: administration and president conducts themselves. And you know, the Kennedy
13:34
Speaker 3: Center was this example of Trump sort of expanding his
13:38
Speaker 3: reach into different goddists around Washington and that getting smacked down,
13:45
Speaker 3: and now the Kennedy Center is potentially on the hook
13:48
Speaker 3: to pay these legal fees.
13:50
Speaker 2: Great research, Zoe, great story, Thanks so much. That's Bloomberg
13:54
Speaker 2: Legal Reporters, Zoe Tilman. Tom Goldstein was a star of
14:01
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court bar appearing forty four times before the
14:05
Speaker 2: High Court, but he was living a double life as
14:08
Speaker 2: a high stakes poker player. And now Goldstein is in
14:12
Speaker 2: prison serving a six year sentence for tax evasion and
14:16
Speaker 2: mortgage fraud. The fifteen day trial included testimony about multimillion
14:21
Speaker 2: dollar poker pots, Goldstein's lavish lifestyle, and there was even
14:26
Speaker 2: testimony from Hollywood star Toby McGuire, an avid poker player
14:31
Speaker 2: who enlisted Goldstein's help in recovering a gambling debt from
14:35
Speaker 2: a billionaire. Goldstein says he'll appeal the verdict. Joining me
14:40
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg Last senior reporter Holly Barker Holly tell Us
14:43
Speaker 2: about Goldstein, the Supreme Court litigator before the scandal.
14:49
Speaker 4: So Tom Goldstein is a prodigious Supreme Court lawyer. He's
14:54
Speaker 4: argued more than forty cases before the High Court. He
14:58
Speaker 4: also founded a website called Scotus Blog, which was really
15:03
Speaker 4: a groundbicking website for access to the Supreme Court. It
15:08
Speaker 4: was launched at a time where the Supreme Court itself wasn't.
15:12
Speaker 1: Very easy to navigate.
15:14
Speaker 4: He built a reputation for himself in sort of an
15:16
Speaker 4: unusual way. He didn't go to the usual sort of
15:20
Speaker 4: Ivy League schools, he didn't clerk for a Supreme Court justice.
15:24
Speaker 4: But yet he built this really grand career in really
15:28
Speaker 4: great reputation in sort of a scrappy way. So for
15:31
Speaker 4: legal nerds far and wide, he was sort of a
15:33
Speaker 4: household name, long before he was indicted on tax fraud charges.
15:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, so explain the reaction when he was indicted on
15:43
Speaker 2: tax fraud charges.
15:45
Speaker 1: People were really shocked.
15:46
Speaker 4: So in January twenty twenty five, at the tail end
15:49
Speaker 4: of the Biden administration, an indictment drop and it was
15:53
Speaker 4: originally twenty two counts. It was went out down on
15:56
Speaker 4: the government's own motion to dismiss some accounts down to sixteen.
16:00
Speaker 4: The allegations for the tax offenses really revolved around gold
16:06
Speaker 4: Scene's ultra high stakes poker habit, which you know, there
16:10
Speaker 4: had been some reporting on. You know, people knew he
16:13
Speaker 4: played poker, but I don't think that there was any
16:16
Speaker 4: appreciation for sort of the real scale of what he
16:20
Speaker 4: was doing.
16:21
Speaker 1: So that aspect of it, I think alone was shocking.
16:23
Speaker 4: But then also this idea that this really well respected
16:26
Speaker 4: lawyer may have been engaged in dodging his taxes was
16:30
Speaker 4: you know, obviously shocking in its own way.
16:32
Speaker 2: So a six week trial tell us about the highlights
16:37
Speaker 2: of the government's case.
16:39
Speaker 4: The government presented lots of evidence that gold Scene had
16:43
Speaker 4: won tens of millions of dollars, sometimes in a single hand,
16:48
Speaker 4: playing poker, and they showed that his office managers, his
16:53
Speaker 4: accountants were in the dark. He wasn't proactively sort of
16:57
Speaker 4: telling them what they needed to know in order to
17:00
Speaker 4: classify as taxes properly. And it's sentencing. What they basically
17:04
Speaker 4: said was that this was a decade long intentional effort.
17:08
Speaker 4: Any omission was by design. He was intentionally opening foreign
17:13
Speaker 4: bank accounts. He had no reason to think that sort
17:16
Speaker 4: of the people he delegated responsibility to for his taxes
17:20
Speaker 4: would be privy to the information that they needed in
17:23
Speaker 4: order to get it right. And you know, he should
17:25
Speaker 4: have known better. And they also pointed to he had
17:28
Speaker 4: irs tax audits and people had sort of flagged for him,
17:31
Speaker 4: professionals had flagged for him more than ten years ago
17:35
Speaker 4: that he needed to be sort of cognizant of these
17:39
Speaker 4: special reporting requirements for gambling and really needed to be careful.
17:43
Speaker 4: And the government says that instead of sort of responding
17:46
Speaker 4: to that advice and being compliant, he shifted to a
17:49
Speaker 4: new accounting firm and sort of started all over and
17:53
Speaker 4: hit it all from them too. That was sort of
17:55
Speaker 4: the thrust of it was to the extent that it
17:57
Speaker 4: looked like mistakes or mission or just in competence or
18:02
Speaker 4: that this guy just wasn't paying attention to his taxes.
18:05
Speaker 4: That was really all by design, and gold stated argued that,
18:09
Speaker 4: you know, look, you're right. I did when a ton
18:11
Speaker 4: of money, and I didn't always understand exactly how I
18:15
Speaker 4: was supposed to report it. But my loss is offset
18:18
Speaker 4: most of my winnings, and I was doing what I
18:20
Speaker 4: thought I needed to be doing.
18:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so he gambled and took the stand. And
18:27
Speaker 2: you know, as we've discussed, when you take the stand,
18:30
Speaker 2: sometimes the jury just focuses on your testimony and everything
18:33
Speaker 2: else goes out the window. So what was he like
18:36
Speaker 2: on the stand?
18:37
Speaker 4: I thought he presented it well. He seemed very well prepared.
18:41
Speaker 4: It is a gamble, of course, to put somebody in
18:43
Speaker 4: the stand, but I do think that they sort of
18:46
Speaker 4: needed to do it because nobody else was going to
18:49
Speaker 4: be able to explain, you know, what losses he may
18:52
Speaker 4: have had, for example, that would have offset There's no
18:55
Speaker 4: other evidence other than his testimony to really cut against
18:59
Speaker 4: what the government was presenting. So he had to get
19:01
Speaker 4: up there, and I think he did well, but I
19:04
Speaker 4: don't think it was enough.
19:05
Speaker 1: And you know, I do think oftentimes one.
19:08
Speaker 4: Of the big risks with testifying in your own defense
19:13
Speaker 4: is that you might get if the court doesn't believe
19:15
Speaker 4: you and the jury doesn't believe you, there's a risk
19:17
Speaker 4: that on the back end, it's sentencing, you're going to
19:20
Speaker 4: get hit with like an obstruction finding, which can increase
19:23
Speaker 4: your points for purposes of what your sentencing guidelines range
19:27
Speaker 4: is going to look like. And he did get deemed
19:29
Speaker 4: for obstruction here, but incidentally it had nothing to do
19:32
Speaker 4: with this testimony. Instead, it had to do with representations
19:37
Speaker 4: that he'd made to government agents like IRS agents, after
19:40
Speaker 4: he knew he was under investigation. But she actually didn't
19:44
Speaker 4: make a finding of obstruction with respect to his testimony.
19:47
Speaker 4: So it looks like there wasn't sort of a penalty
19:50
Speaker 4: on the back end for having taken the stand, at
19:53
Speaker 4: least beyond how it may have negatively.
19:55
Speaker 1: Impacted the outcome from his perspective.
19:59
Speaker 2: Now, at the sentencing, the prosecutors wanted eight years and
20:04
Speaker 2: they said that his motivation was singular, pure, unrelenting greed.
20:10
Speaker 2: I thought he had a gambling addiction. Did Judge Lydia K.
20:14
Speaker 2: Griggsby take into account his gambling addiction when sentencing him?
20:19
Speaker 4: Well, so he has an expert apparently the details of
20:22
Speaker 4: all this, the public isn't privy too, but he has
20:25
Speaker 4: some sort of authority that has prepared a document saying
20:29
Speaker 4: that he's been struggling with addiction. And it seems like
20:32
Speaker 4: there might be other mental health issues that were discussed
20:34
Speaker 4: under seal, But the government has suggested at sentencing that
20:39
Speaker 4: it sort of isn't buying it. They actually mentioned that
20:41
Speaker 4: they had tried to subpoena this expert, and the expert
20:45
Speaker 4: had acknowledged receipt of the subpoena but then just didn't show.
20:48
Speaker 4: So the government actually wanted to call this expert to testify,
20:51
Speaker 4: but he just wasn't available. I think that would have
20:53
Speaker 4: happened during the sealed portion of the hearing. But I mean,
20:58
Speaker 4: you know, to the accent your question, is this get
21:00
Speaker 4: factored into his sentence, Griggsby did say, you know that
21:05
Speaker 4: she was considering what she generally specified as mental health
21:09
Speaker 4: issues that were discuss during the sealed part of the hearing.
21:12
Speaker 4: In deviating downward from that sentence in guidelines range and
21:16
Speaker 4: I should say that you know, the max was higher
21:19
Speaker 4: than the eight years that the government asked for, but
21:21
Speaker 4: the government was asking for the maximum of the guidelines
21:26
Speaker 4: range as it had calculated it, and Goldstein's camp contested
21:30
Speaker 4: the way that it was calculated and said it was inflated,
21:32
Speaker 4: but by the government's assessment, it should the sence should
21:35
Speaker 4: have fallen within at least a recommended range was seventy
21:38
Speaker 4: eight to ninety seven months, and we wound up with
21:41
Speaker 4: seventy two.
21:41
Speaker 1: So Griggs, we debated downwards for that.
21:44
Speaker 2: I mean, I was surprised that they asked for that
21:47
Speaker 2: much and that the judge sentenced him to that long
21:51
Speaker 2: because it's a first defense. What about his career and
21:55
Speaker 2: all the good he's done in his career, and I
21:57
Speaker 2: think he also mentored people. I mean, it almost seemed
22:01
Speaker 2: as if he was being punished for having achieved so
22:05
Speaker 2: much in the law instead of getting a break for that.
22:09
Speaker 4: I think, you know, some of that cuts both ways.
22:11
Speaker 4: And when she imposed a below guideline sentence, she did
22:14
Speaker 4: say she was taking into account as lack of criminal
22:17
Speaker 4: history and that already gets factored into her actual guideline
22:20
Speaker 4: score for that range, but she said she was thinking
22:23
Speaker 4: about it again in terms of where she resultimately get
22:26
Speaker 4: a sentence in and she also said, yes, he's done
22:29
Speaker 4: a lot of charitable work. He was a great mentor
22:33
Speaker 4: to a lot of people, which came out during trial
22:36
Speaker 4: and in the letters of support that she received for
22:38
Speaker 4: purposes of sentencing, and she describes Cota's blog as groundbreaking,
22:43
Speaker 4: So she was giving him some credit for that, you know,
22:46
Speaker 4: earlier which she was justifying sort of the need for
22:49
Speaker 4: a custodial sentence and a significant sentence. You know, she said,
22:53
Speaker 4: it's an extra disappointing when a really accomplished officer of
22:57
Speaker 4: the court engages in conduct like this. So, you know,
23:02
Speaker 4: while his sort of being a zero point offender, being
23:05
Speaker 4: this really accomplished lawyer, that can help in some ways,
23:08
Speaker 4: you know, maybe because of the charitable work that he
23:11
Speaker 4: did his mentorship, but it also sort of makes you wonder, well,
23:15
Speaker 4: you knew better?
23:16
Speaker 1: Right, So I think it cuts both ways in that respect.
23:19
Speaker 2: And he spoke at the sentencing.
23:21
Speaker 4: He did so when he stood up, he explained that
23:24
Speaker 4: because he was tending to appeal, there's only so much
23:28
Speaker 4: he can say, like he doesn't want to say anything
23:30
Speaker 4: on record that might upset his appeal or even come into.
23:34
Speaker 1: Play should he win a new trial.
23:37
Speaker 4: So it was more circumspect, I suppose than it may
23:40
Speaker 4: have otherwise been. He focused on two things he said
23:43
Speaker 4: he thought he could do, which was express regret and
23:46
Speaker 4: try to reassure the court that it could trust him
23:49
Speaker 4: to respect the process and trust him to remain on release.
23:53
Speaker 4: And he wasn't ultimately successful on that front. At the
23:56
Speaker 4: end of the day, Griggsby revoked his bond and he
23:58
Speaker 4: was remanded into custody. So unlike many, if not most,
24:02
Speaker 4: white collar defendants, he wasn't allowed to voluntarily surrender. One
24:06
Speaker 4: of the things he said, sort of in trying to
24:08
Speaker 4: take responsibility without admitting to any crimes, you know, he
24:12
Speaker 4: said there was no question that he deeply disappointed people,
24:15
Speaker 4: and he admitted that he hasn't held himself to the
24:18
Speaker 4: standards that he should have as a prominent lawyer. And
24:21
Speaker 4: I think this was sort of the best way he
24:22
Speaker 4: could own everything that had happened. He said, you know,
24:25
Speaker 4: I put myself in the position he could make very
24:29
Speaker 4: negative judgments about my character and where the jury could find.
24:32
Speaker 1: Me guilty of a crime.
24:34
Speaker 4: And if anyone wants to know who did that, who
24:36
Speaker 4: created the circumstances or that could occur.
24:38
Speaker 1: That's me, and I'm going to be punished for that.
24:40
Speaker 4: So he tried to take responsibility without jeopardizing his appeal.
24:45
Speaker 4: He also, in addition to speaking on his own behalf
24:50
Speaker 4: the court, received more than twenty letters or support, including
24:53
Speaker 4: from multiple people who served as government witnesses at trial.
24:57
Speaker 4: So like Bob Safi, this real estate who had trouble
25:02
Speaker 4: collecting six million that he won from gold Scene in
25:05
Speaker 4: a two day poker match in twenty seventeen, testified because
25:09
Speaker 4: he testified about misdirected payments essentially for the most part,
25:14
Speaker 4: And there were also letters of support from names you
25:17
Speaker 4: might recognize like Nina Totenberg, the Supreme Court reporter at
25:21
Speaker 4: NPR and legal scholar Lawrence Tribe and retired reporter Pete Williams.
25:27
Speaker 4: So he had a substantial amount of support from outsiders,
25:30
Speaker 4: also family and his friends, and I think notably even
25:33
Speaker 4: some government witnesses. And you might remember that when he
25:38
Speaker 4: was on release he had a friend of his serving
25:41
Speaker 4: as his non residential custodian for a period of time
25:43
Speaker 4: after his former spouse, I'm not sure where their divorce
25:47
Speaker 4: proceedings are right now, said I can't do this anymore.
25:50
Speaker 4: He spoke to and described Goldstein as he said he
25:55
Speaker 4: hadn't encountered a kinder more generous, more empathetic colleague and
25:58
Speaker 4: the legal profession. Gold Scene had people in his corner
26:01
Speaker 4: to help mitigate the sentence.
26:03
Speaker 2: He said, he's going to appeal. Can you spot any
26:06
Speaker 2: issues for appeal to.
26:07
Speaker 4: The extent that there is a colorable appellate issue. I
26:11
Speaker 4: guarantee he's identified it. There are two, so there are numerous,
26:15
Speaker 4: but there are two that he raised in his motion
26:19
Speaker 4: for release pending appeal, which he lost. In arguing that
26:23
Speaker 4: he raised two appellate issues that he said were sort
26:26
Speaker 4: of seemed to think were the strongest, and one was
26:29
Speaker 4: a challenge to the court's instructions on accessory liability, and
26:34
Speaker 4: the other was the exclusion of text messages that Goldstein
26:38
Speaker 4: had wanted to get admitted that basically constituted a sort
26:42
Speaker 4: of ledger of his gambling activities. He was allowed to
26:45
Speaker 4: rely on them when he testified, but they never went
26:49
Speaker 4: back to the jury. With respect to the accessory liability issue,
26:53
Speaker 4: it's sort of complicated, but to sum it up, he
26:56
Speaker 4: argues that jurors could have read the instructions to allow
26:59
Speaker 4: them to convict him based on accessory liability even though
27:03
Speaker 4: they weren't instructed on the elements of accessory liability, and
27:07
Speaker 4: the court ultimately decided not to include the detailed elements
27:12
Speaker 4: because well, it's not necessary because there's not enough evidence
27:15
Speaker 4: to support that theory of liability.
27:17
Speaker 1: Anyway.
27:18
Speaker 4: Another thing that she did in the context of those
27:20
Speaker 4: instructions was she altered the instructions after the parties had
27:24
Speaker 4: given their closing arguments, which is a violation of procedural rules.
27:29
Speaker 4: But she said, Okay, sure, it's the violation of procedural rules,
27:32
Speaker 4: but it wasn't prejudicial in any event, because she just
27:35
Speaker 4: doesn't see a world in which the jury would have
27:37
Speaker 4: read the instructions to allow it to convict on accessory liability.
27:41
Speaker 4: So those are the two issues that he seems to
27:43
Speaker 4: be most confident about.
27:45
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Holly. That's Bloomberg Law Senior Reporter Holly Barker,
27:50
Speaker 2: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
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