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Hunter Biden, the president’s son, offered to plead guilty to tax fraud at the last minute, a U-turn aimed at avoiding a trial that was set to begin Thursday in Los Angeles, a source of embarrassment for Joe Biden. Hunter Biden, 54, faces one count of tax fraud and two counts of making false statements for failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes over the past decade.
But before his trial began Thursday morning in Los Angeles with jury selection, his attorney Abbe Lowell told the federal judge that he was prepared to plead guilty, using a special feature of American law that allows a person to accept a conviction while maintaining his innocence. The hearing, which the judge suspended to give the prosecution time to consider, is scheduled to resume later Thursday.
Already convicted of lying about his drug addiction
Joe Biden’s youngest son was already convicted this year of lying about his drug addiction when buying a gun – a crime in the Biden home state of Delaware. His sentence has not yet been handed down. During the hearings in this trial, Hunter Biden’s luxurious lifestyle, his failing marriage and his cocaine addiction had already been exposed in public.
It was apparently to avoid these infamous details being heard again that the defense proposed to plead guilty on Thursday. On the merits of the case, to justify this non-payment of taxes, the defense argues negligence during a chaotic period for Hunter Biden due to the deterioration of his addiction and the death of his brother Beau from a brain tumor. Hunter Biden, who claims to have not touched drugs since 2019, has already repaid the taxes owed, as well as the related fines to the authorities.
And he had previously reached a plea deal that would have spared him a prison sentence. But that deal eventually fell apart, and according to the American press, the president’s son has been trying to reach a new one ever since. This former lawyer and businessman, now a painter, has over the years become a favorite target of Republicans seeking to portray the Democratic president as the head of a corrupt family.
Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in late July, in favor of Kamala Harris, has, however, caused the intensity of the opposition’s attacks to subside. If a trial does take place in Los Angeles, Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison.
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