A convicted Wall Street swindler who was named New York’s No. 1 tax deadbeat a decade in the past has been residing it up in California, working a charity praised by Gov. Gavin Newsom and hawking erectile dysfunction tablets — all while dodging a tax invoice that has soared to $59.1 million, The Post has discovered.
Daniel Gordon — an ex-Merrill Lynch trader who pleaded guilty in 2003 to bilking the bank out of $43 million in a brazen wire fraud scheme — lives with his spouse, Kate, in a 10,495-square-foot unfold close to Palm Springs, Calif. that’s price more than $5 million, state tax data show.
The sprawling compound in Rancho Mirage — a posh desert enclave whose residents have included Frank Sinatra, Bill Gates and President Gerald Ford — boasts a sunken tennis court, a three-hole placing inexperienced and a resort-style pool with cascading waterfalls and a swim-up bar, according to a realtor itemizing.
Reinventing himself as a Golden State do-gooder, Daniel Gordon is proven smiling in a classroom full of youngsters, in a photograph selling Gordon Philanthropies’ work to promote literacy. Gordonphilanthropies.org
Meanwhile, 50-year-old Gordon has reinvented himself as a Golden State philanthropist. He operates a prison reform charity called Gordon Philanthropies, doing TV interviews and photo-ops with LAPD and the California Department of Corrections and plastering his web site with images of him smiling at ribbon-cuttings and charitable occasions.
In November 2024, Gordon even got a gushing letter of reward from Gov. Newsom, who addressed the letter to “Daniel” and added a giant, handwritten “Thank you!” in addition to his signature at the backside. The missive is proudly displayed on his charity’s Facebook web page.
“Thank you again for your generous contributions,” Newsom wrote. “I look forward to your continued partnership.”
Gordon and Newsom’s workplace did not reply to requests for remark. California prison officers ignored The Post’s questions about Gordon’s felony previous and towering tax tab, pointing instead to guidelines that let them take non-public presents.
All of this comes after New York tax enforcers singled out Gordon in 2016 as the state’s largest tax dodger on its “Top 100” checklist with $25.1 million in excellent warrants — and pledging to The Post that they would hunt him down and make him pay.
A thank-you letter from Gov. Gavin Newsom seems on the Gordon Philanthropies Facebook web page. Gordon Philanthropies/Facebook
A decade later, two energetic Albany County tax warrants against Gordon stand at a mixed $59,141,763.16.
The staggering sum is tied immediately to Gordon’s tried Merrill Lynch heist, in which the then-24-year-old Yale grad famously tricked his bosses into wiring $43 million into an offshore shell company, pocketing the money in a phony insurance coverage deal.
After Gordon was ordered in 2003 to give up the fortune he embezzled, Uncle Sam and Albany demanded their cut, too, as stolen loot also counts as taxable income. The tab has since ballooned with compounding curiosity and penalties.
During his 2013 chapter trial, the money man admitted under oath to dodging over $34 million in back taxes and testified the IRS gave him a blunt actuality test about his stolen Merrill loot despite the reality he had returned the $43 million: “Under our laws you owe us taxes … regardless of the fact that it was repaid.”
His felony pleas failed to wipe the slate clean, and when tax collectors refused to back down, Gordon fled to chapter court.
Gordon attends the grand opening of the Malibu Conservation Camp Outdoor Educational Center in January. Gordon Philanthropies and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation celebrated the opening of the middle, a secure and welcoming space for incarcerated girls firefighters to join with their youngsters.
In a blistering 2015 resolution, US Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Gerber denied Gordon’s bid to wipe out his personal money owed in a Chapter 7 submitting, ruling that the former Wall Streeter had fraudulently hidden $3.1 million in belongings and lied under oath, offering excuses that “insulted the intelligence of the court.”
During the trial, it emerged that Gordon had wired $2 million to a phantom Nevada shell company with no employees, workplace, or ledgers. A shocked Judge Gerber also halted questioning when Gordon’s lawyer confirmed he charged former New York Knicks middle Eddy Curry 89.79% curiosity on a $570,000 loan — inflicting it to balloon into a $2 million debt in just 18 months.
Gordon claimed during the trial he had just $3,147 to his identify. Yet he admitted residing in a $19,000-a-month Upper East Side residence and dropping $140,000 on a Hamptons summer time rental, hiding the metropolis lease behind a company shell.
Gordon’s lawyer confirmed he charged former New York Knicks middle Eddy Curry 89.79% curiosity on a $570,000 loan — inflicting it to balloon into a $2 million debt in just 18 months. Anthony J Causi
Despite media frenzies sparked by Gordon’s case, state officers still haven’t filed the routine paperwork to gather Gordon’s towering tax debt. That’s also despite getting tipped off by a whistleblower more than two years in the past, The Post has discovered.
Leaked emails obtained by The Post reveal state investigators failed to make a transfer even after they were handed a detailed roadmap to more than $26 million of Gordon’s alleged holdings.
In March 2024, a whistleblower despatched a string of ideas to the Department of Taxation and Finance’s inner affairs wing. The tipster, a Texas entrepreneur who requested anonymity due to death threats, has been locked in a bitter court battle with Gordon.
In November 2024, Gordon got a gushing letter of reward from Gov. Newsom, which he proudly shows on his charity’s Facebook web page. Getty Images
The whistleblower flagged “$4.1mm dollars in non-exempt California Real Estate in addition to the 22mm worth of shares of stock in public companies,” according to one e-mail.
“I would really like the state of New York, at least, to get their money back,” the tipster wrote.
The tipster even pointed state investigators to an tackle proper in their own yard: a stock switch agent at 1 State St. in Lower Manhattan holding shares tied to a Gordon-linked company vehicle.
A New York tax investigator, recognized in the messages only as Inv. Politylo, replied promising to “forward this to the appropriate department.”
Gordon during an occasion at the LAPD Southeast Community Police Station last yr.
Daniel L. Gordon, middle, founder of Gordon Philanthropies, is seen in a photograph posted to his group’s web site.
More than two years later, however, county data show New York has yet to file a single lien against the Rancho Mirage mansion. Empire State tax warrants expire after 20 years, that means Albany has already blown half the clock to gather.
Darren Dopp, a spokesman for the New York Department of Taxation and Finance, declined to remark on what efforts the company under Gov. Kathy Hochul has made to gather the $59.1 million, citing state tax secrecy legal guidelines.
Thanks to a bureaucratic rule, New York drops deadbeats from its “Top 100” checklist if officers fail to file a recent warrant in 12 months, Dopp said. Debtors can also drop off the checklist by difficult an evaluation, cutting a deal, dying, or declaring chapter.
The $59 million black gap could be embarrassing for New York Attorney General Letitia James as fellow Dem Mayor Zohran Mamdani eyes tax hikes to pay for his tax-and-spend agenda. Stephen Yang for NY Post
Edward Zelinsky, a tax professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, said monitoring down Gordon’s California belongings should be easy for New York’s prime attorneys.
“This is certainly something that should be within the routine competence of the New York attorney general, particularly for large judgments where it would be financially feasible to acquire help from counsel in the other state,” he said.
A spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James insisted the state’s prime prosecutor can’t raise a finger unless tax officers formally hand over the file.
A view of the property positioned at 72743 Clancy Lane in Rancho Mirage, Calif., owned by convicted Wall Street swindler Daniel Gordon, who is dodging a $59 million New York tax invoice while residing in the $4 million property. Rafael Fontoura for CA Post
“The Department of Taxation and Finance is the primary enforcement agency in matters involving outstanding public tax debts unless a referral is made to the Office of the Attorney General,” James spokeswoman Alexis Richards said.
“Per the Post’s own reporting, the Department issued warrants for Mr. Gordon’s state tax debts. That is the end of the story here, but unfortunately The Post seems determined to disparage the critical work the Office of the Attorney General does every day to protect New Yorkers and their wallets,” she added.
The Tax Department, for its half, claimed it never sends assortment instances to James’ workplace.
“The AG’s office is not involved in the case,” Dopp said. “The AG’s office does not handle our collections matters.”
“It’s very unusual,” added Timothy Noonan, a companion at Hodgson Russ LLP. “I would think a taxpayer like that would be high on the radar screen.”
More than two years later, however, county data show New York has yet to file a single lien against the Rancho Mirage mansion. Rafael Fontoura for CA Post
When tax deadbeats flee the state, tax authorities “can authorize the Attorney General to pursue collection anywhere else,” Noonan said. Specifically, by “domesticating the warrant” in California, Albany could flip its New York tax tab into a native court judgment in a single day, freeze Gordon’s bank accounts and seize his desert mansion, Noonan said.
Generally, there is no law that prevents the AG and the tax division from selecting up the cellphone to coordinate, said Steven Goldburd, a managing companion at Manhattan tax firm Goldburd McCone LLP.
“Governments are all about going after low-hanging fruit,” he said. “It is infinitely easier to attack a $2,000 tax bill of a taxpayer that will likely never fight back than the multimillion-dollar tax bill of a legally well-armed taxpayer that will.”
Gordon, then 29, was sentenced to 42 months in prison for embezzling $43 million from his former employer, fined $100,000 and ordered to forfeit the money he stole. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Still, while a rich tax dodger can make use of high-priced consultants to protect themselves from assortment and delay enforcement, “an LLC is a legal barrier, not a magic cloak,” former Manhattan DA asset forfeiture chief Duncan Levin advised The Post.
“New York cannot simply grab company assets to pay an owner’s personal tax bill,” Levin said. “But if the company is really his personal piggy bank, that barrier may come down.”
Levin added that Gordon’s California palace could be a much simpler goal because it sits in his own identify, though seizing real estate requires a court order.
The disgraced ex-trader Gordon is pumping money into a generic Viagra aspect hustle instead of paying off his $59.1 million state tax tab. PaulSat – stock.adobe.com
“A $5 million house is not a $5 million check,” Levin said. “The state’s job is to turn a tax warrant into a recovery. You don’t collect a debt by admiring the size of it.”
Meanwhile, Gordon stays busy in California. Corporate filings show his charity, his penny stock outfit Polomar Health Services, and his GLD Partners investment arm all operate out of the same Los Angeles workplace suite.
SEC data show he holds 49% voting control at Polomar, which lately spent more than $193,000 shopping for “Wafesil” — a dissolving sildenafil erection drug — immediately from another firm Gordon controls.
Disclosures reveal Polomar has also been pushing an “inhalable sildenafil” program: primarily an asthma-style rescue inhaler loaded with generic Viagra.
