Hunter Biden, the son of the US president, pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges on Thursday and avoided trial. He will be sentenced on December 16.
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Hunter Biden, 54, faces one count of tax evasion and two counts of filing 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 lawyer Abbe Lowell told the federal judge that he was prepared to plead guilty, using a specific feature of American law that allows a person to accept a conviction while proclaiming his innocence.
The hearing, suspended by the judge to allow the prosecution time to reflect, is due to resume later on Thursday.
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 of this trial, Hunter Biden’s luxurious lifestyle, his failing marriage and his cocaine addiction had already been publicly exposed.
It was apparently to avoid these infamous details being heard again that the defense proposed a guilty plea on Thursday.
On the merits of the case, to justify this non-payment of taxes, the defense pleads 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 says he has been drug-free since 2019, has already paid back taxes owed and fines to authorities.
And he had previously reached a plea deal that would have spared him a prison sentence. But that deal ultimately fell apart, and according to American press reports, the president’s son has since been trying to reach a new one.
This former lawyer and businessman, now a painter, has become over the years a favorite target of Republicans who seek to portray the Democratic president as the head of a corrupt family.
However, Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race at the end of July in favour of Kamala Harris has caused the intensity of the opposition’s attacks to drop.
If a trial does take place in Los Angeles, Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison.
