A convicted Wall Street swindler who was named New York’s No. 1 tax deadbeat a decade ago has been living it up in California, running a charity praised by Gov. Gavin Newsom and hawking erectile dysfunction pills — all while dodging a tax bill that has soared to $59.1 million, The Post has learned.
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 wife, Kate, in a 10,495-square-foot spread near Palm Springs, Calif. that’s worth more than $5 million, state tax records 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 putting green and a resort-style pool with cascading waterfalls and a swim-up bar, according to a realtor listing.
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 website with photos of him smiling at ribbon-cuttings and charitable events.
In November 2024, Gordon even got a gushing letter of praise from Gov. Newsom, who addressed the letter to “Daniel” and added a large, handwritten “Thank you!” in addition to his signature at the bottom. The missive is proudly displayed on his charity’s Facebook page.
“Thank you again for your generous contributions,” Newsom wrote. “I look forward to your continued partnership.”
Gordon and Newsom’s office did not respond to requests for comment. California prison officials ignored The Post’s questions about Gordon’s criminal past and towering tax tab, pointing instead to rules that let them take private gifts.
All of this comes after New York tax enforcers singled out Gordon in 2016 as the state’s biggest tax dodger on its “Top 100” list with $25.1 million in outstanding warrants — and pledging to The Post that they would hunt him down and make him pay.
A decade later, two active Albany County tax warrants against Gordon stand at a combined $59,141,763.16.
The staggering sum is tied directly to Gordon’s attempted 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 cash in a phony insurance deal.
After Gordon was ordered in 2003 to surrender 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 interest and penalties.
During his 2013 bankruptcy trial, the money man admitted under oath to dodging over $34 million in back taxes and testified the IRS gave him a blunt reality check about his stolen Merrill loot despite the fact he had returned the $43 million: “Under our laws you owe us taxes … regardless of the fact that it was repaid.”
His criminal pleas failed to wipe the slate clean, and when tax collectors refused to back down, Gordon fled to bankruptcy court.
In a blistering 2015 decision, US Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Gerber denied Gordon’s bid to wipe out his personal debts in a Chapter 7 filing, ruling that the former Wall Streeter had fraudulently hidden $3.1 million in assets 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 staff, office, or ledgers. A stunned Judge Gerber also halted questioning when Gordon’s lawyer confirmed he charged former New York Knicks center Eddy Curry 89.79% interest on a $570,000 loan — causing it to balloon into a $2 million debt in just 18 months.
Gordon claimed during the trial he had just $3,147 to his name. Yet he admitted living in a $19,000-a-month Upper East Side apartment and dropping $140,000 on a Hamptons summer rental, hiding the city lease behind a corporate shell.
Despite media frenzies sparked by Gordon’s case, state officials still haven’t filed the routine paperwork to collect Gordon’s towering tax debt. That’s also despite getting tipped off by a whistleblower more than two years ago, The Post has learned.
Leaked emails obtained by The Post reveal state investigators failed to make a move even after they were handed a detailed roadmap to more than $26 million of Gordon’s alleged holdings.
In March 2024, a whistleblower sent a string of tips to the Department of Taxation and Finance’s internal affairs wing. The tipster, a Texas entrepreneur who requested anonymity due to death threats, has been locked in a bitter court fight with Gordon.
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 email.
“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 address right in their own backyard: a stock transfer agent at 1 State St. in Lower Manhattan holding shares tied to a Gordon-linked corporate vehicle.
A New York tax investigator, identified in the messages only as Inv. Politylo, replied promising to “forward this to the appropriate department.”
Daniel L. Gordon, center, founder of Gordon Philanthropies, is seen in a photo posted to his organization’s website.
More than two years later, however, county records show New York has yet to record a single lien against the Rancho Mirage mansion. Empire State tax warrants expire after 20 years, meaning Albany has already blown half the clock to collect.
Darren Dopp, a spokesman for the New York Department of Taxation and Finance, declined to comment on what efforts the agency under Gov. Kathy Hochul has made to collect the $59.1 million, citing state tax secrecy laws.
Thanks to a bureaucratic rule, New York drops deadbeats from its “Top 100” list if officials fail to file a fresh warrant in 12 months, Dopp said. Debtors can also drop off the list by challenging an assessment, cutting a deal, dying, or declaring bankruptcy.
Edward Zelinsky, a tax professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, said tracking down Gordon’s California assets should be straightforward for New York’s top lawyers.
“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 top prosecutor can’t lift a finger unless tax officials formally hand over the file.
“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 part, claimed it never sends collection cases to James’ office.
“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 partner at Hodgson Russ LLP. “I would think a taxpayer like that would be high on the radar screen.”
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 turn its New York tax tab into a local court judgment overnight, freeze Gordon’s bank accounts and seize his desert mansion, Noonan said.
Generally, there is no law that prevents the AG and the tax department from picking up the phone to coordinate, said Steven Goldburd, a managing partner 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.”
Still, while a wealthy tax dodger can employ high-priced consultants to shield themselves from collection and delay enforcement, “an LLC is a legal barrier, not a magic cloak,” former Manhattan DA asset forfeiture chief Duncan Levin told 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 easier target because it sits in his own name, though seizing real estate requires a court order.
“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 office suite.
SEC records show he holds 49% voting control at Polomar, which recently spent more than $193,000 buying “Wafesil” — a dissolving sildenafil erection drug — directly from another firm Gordon controls.
Disclosures reveal Polomar has also been pushing an “inhalable sildenafil” program: essentially an asthma-style rescue inhaler loaded with generic Viagra.
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