Editor-DN
Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, pleaded guilty Thursday to all nine tax charges.
Washington:
Joe Biden’s son Hunter pleaded guilty to tax evasion on Thursday, without reaching a deal he had sought with prosecutors, in a case that has caused embarrassment and distraction for the US president. .
The 54-year-old pleaded guilty to nine counts of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes over the past decade, which prosecutors say he spent on a lavish lifestyle, sex workers and drug addiction.
The pleas came on the day a jury was scheduled to begin selection for the trial, and hours after Biden offered to plead guilty in hopes of striking a deal that would keep him out of jail. could
But no deal materialized and Biden made the pleas in open court, with U.S. District Judge Mark Scorsese warning him he could face a lengthy prison sentence as well as fines of up to $1 million.
Scarci sentenced on December 16.
The trial was expected to rehash the grim details of a life that the defendant and his family — including the president — have long acknowledged had been derailed.
Biden has already spent part of 2024 in court, convicted of lying about his drug use in Delaware when he bought a gun.
He has yet to be sentenced for the crime, and could face up to 25 years in prison.
Political fight
Biden’s lawyers have said he is being sued simply because of who he is.
“They want to smear him because that’s the whole point,” Biden’s attorney Mark Geragos reportedly said during an August hearing in which he accused prosecutors of attempted character assassination.
Biden’s defense team has argued that the nonpayment of taxes was an oversight of a life in chaos due to drug addiction and the trauma of losing his older brother Beau to a brain tumor in 2015.
Biden has paid back taxes as well as fines imposed by authorities, and previously reached a plea deal that kept him out of jail.
That deal fell apart at the last minute, and Biden is understood to have been trying to reach someone else ever since.
But it has been difficult for prosecutors, whose every move in this election year is being scrutinized by Republicans, who blame the defendant because he is the president’s son.
Hunter Biden has for years been a foil to his father’s political opponents, who have tried — without providing evidence — to smear the family as a gang of criminals who made the fortune and wealth of Joe Biden’s career. Has gained power.
The elder Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in favor of Kamala Harris drew a lot of enthusiasm from the Republican campaign to make an example of his son.
Hunter Biden, a Yale-educated lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist who lives in Malibu, has said he has been drug-free since 2019.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
