New Delhi, July 25 -- GREENBELT, Md. - The sentence arrived in a federal courtroom here on Friday morning, and it came with handcuffs. Thomas Goldstein, who had argued before the United States Supreme Court 44 times and co-founded the internet's most widely cited blog about the nation's highest court, was ordered taken into custody immediately after US District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced him to six years in prison. There would be no bail pending appeal. The judge had resisted pre-trial detention requests throughout the proceedings. She did not resist this one.

Goldstein, 56, was convicted in February on 12 of 16 counts following a six-week trial. The charges included one count of tax evasion, four counts of willful failure to tim...