Joe Biden’s son Hunter pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges on Thursday but failed to reach a settlement with prosecutors in what has been an 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, money that prosecutors said he spent on a lavish lifestyle, sex workers and drug addiction.
The plea came on the day jury selection for the trial was set to begin, and just hours after Biden had pleaded guilty in hopes he might avoid prison.
But no agreement appeared to be reached and Biden entered pleas in open court, at which US District Judge Mark Scarsi cautioned him that he could face a lengthy prison sentence as well as a fine of up to $1 million.
Scarsi set a Dec. 16 date for sentencing.
The trial was expected to re-expose sordid details of a life that the defendant and his family — including the president — have long acknowledged derailed.
Biden has already spent a large part of 2024 in court, having been convicted of lying about his drug use when buying a gun in Delaware — a felony.
He has not yet been sentenced for that crime, and could face up to 25 years in prison.
– Political battle –
Biden’s lawyers have said he is being brought to court solely because of his personality.
“They want to discredit him, because that’s their whole goal,” Biden’s attorney, Mark Geragos, reportedly said during a hearing in August where he accused prosecutors of attempting character assassination.
Biden’s defense team has argued that the failure to pay taxes was a lapse in a life marred by a growing drug addiction and the trauma of losing his older brother, Beau, to a brain tumor in 2015.
Biden has paid off back taxes, as well as fines levied by authorities, and already reached a plea deal that could have kept him from going to prison.
That deal fell apart at the last minute, and Biden is believed to have been trying to reach another agreement ever since.
But it has been tough for prosecutors, as their every move is watched in this election year by Republicans, who allege the defendant is being treated leniently because he is the president’s son.
Hunter Biden has for years been a weapon for his father’s political opponents, who — without offering evidence — have sought to smear the family as a group of criminals who gained wealth and power thanks to Joe Biden’s career.
The elder Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in favor of Kamala Harris has dampened the Republican effort to hold up his son as an example.
Hunter Biden, a Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist who lives in Malibu, has said he has been drug-free since 2019.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
