Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has offered to accept his conviction on tax evasion charges but not plead guilty, in an unusual legal maneuver that was immediately rejected by federal prosecutors.
It is currently unclear whether the judge presiding over the case will accept Hunter Biden’s motion or proceed to trial. In the second case, embarrassing details of the Democratic president’s son’s private life could be revealed just weeks before November’s presidential election.
Hunter previously pleaded not guilty to charges that he failed to pay $1.4 million in taxes over a decade while spending vast sums on drugs, prostitutes and luxury items. He was prosecuted last December as part of a widening investigation into his financial and business dealings.
In the federal court in Los Angeles, where jury selection was to begin today, Hunter Biden proposed to invoke the so-called “Alford statement”, that is, to voluntarily accept his conviction, at the same time denying the validity of the charge.
Justice Department prosecutors who were in the courtroom said they do not accept this “Alford statement.” These kinds of “beneficial statements” are usually agreed to in advance, after negotiations, because prosecutors must get approval from their superiors to accept them. Prosecutors in that case appeared confused. “It’s not clear to us what he’s trying to do,” one of them told Judge Mark Scarci.
If Scarci accepts Hunter Biden’s statement, there will be no trial.
Hunter, who has admitted to struggling with drug and alcohol addiction for years, is accused of failing to pay taxes between 2016-19 while spending recklessly “on drugs, escorts, luxury hotels, exotic cars, clothes and more objects”. The trial could also reveal details of his work at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma and others when his father was Barack Obama’s vice president. He denies that he was involved in suspicious transactions and the investigations conducted against him by the Congress did not find any incriminating evidence about his father.
Hunter Biden, 54, pleaded guilty over the summer to lying about his drug addiction in order to buy a gun, which is a felony in the State of Delaware. His sentence has not yet been announced.
In his federal tax evasion case, his line of defense is that that period was “chaotic” for him because of his addiction and the death of his brother, Bo, from brain cancer.
Hunter, who says he’s been “clean” since 2019, has already paid the taxes he owed, as well as the fines he’s been slapped with.
If he goes to trial in Los Angeles, he faces up to 17 years in prison.
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