After trial, Hunter Biden’s tax case goes to court in LA – Daily News

Lawyers suggested Wednesday that jurors may hear inflammatory details of Hunter Biden's personal life when the president's son goes on trial in downtown Los Angeles next month on federal tax law violations.

President Joe Biden's son faces nine tax-related charges, including three felony counts and six counts of failure to pay taxes.

Hunter Biden, 54, of Malibu, “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle instead of paying his taxes,” the indictment says.

Evidence that the younger Biden was partying during a time when he admitted to using crack cocaine and allegedly willfully failing to pay more than $1.4 million in taxes could become part of the trial, lawyers said.

A pretrial hearing in the case on Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles focused on motions and evidentiary issues that must be resolved before jury selection begins on September 5. Hunter Biden did not attend the hearing.

On Monday, Donald Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who is presiding over the trial, denied the defendant's request to dismiss the case after the president's son argued that David C. Weiss, who is overseeing the prosecution, was improperly appointed.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously rejected the younger Biden's request to reopen an attempt to dismiss the charges against him.

Hunter Biden's lawyers wrote in their filings that they believe the case was brought “in direct response to political pressure.” His lawyers say the defendant has since paid the government $2 million in back taxes and penalties.

As for the tax charges, the 56-page indictment alleges that between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the defendant “spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything except his taxes.”

Hunter Biden's lead defense attorney, veteran Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Mark J. Geragos, said the trial could take up to 10 days.

In June, the president's son was found guilty of three felony counts in a separate federal case in Delaware involving the purchase of a gun in 2018. Hunter Biden was found guilty of lying on a mandatory gun purchase form, stating that he was not using illegal drugs or addicted to drugs – although he later admitted to being addicted to illegal narcotics at the time.

According to court documents, the verdict against Hunter Biden in the Delaware gun trial is scheduled for November 13, the week after the presidential election.

Hunter Biden is described in the indictment as a Georgetown and Yale-educated lawyer, lobbyist, consultant and businessman. At the time of the tax charges, he sat on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese private equity fund.

“He negotiated and entered into contracts and agreements for business and legal services that resulted in millions of dollars in compensation for himself and/or his domestic companies, Owasco PC and Owasco LLC,” the tax evasion indictment states.

In addition to his business interests, the defendant also worked as an employee of a multinational law firm, the document states.

Hunter Biden said he forgot to pay his taxes while addicted to drugs.