Judge rejects Hunter Biden’s bid to delay his June trial on federal gun charges
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Hunter Biden’s federal gun case will go to trial next month, a judge said Tuesday, denying a bid by lawyers for the president’s son to delay the prosecution.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Biden’s request to push the trial until September, which the defense said was necessary to line up witnesses and go through evidence handed over by prosecutors. The judge said she believes “everyone can get done what needs to get done” by the trial’s start date of June 3.
President Joe Biden’s son is accused of lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days.
Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty, has acknowledged struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine during that period in 2018, but his lawyers have said he didn’t break the law.
Prosecutors said Tuesday they intend to show jurors portions of his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” in which he detailed his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse following the 2015 death of his older brother, Beau, who succumbed to brain cancer at age 46. He has said he has been sober since 2019.
Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell has argued that prosecutors bowed to pressure by Republicans, who claimed the Democratic president’s son was initially given a sweetheart deal, and that he was indicted because of political pressure.
But Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, last month rejected his claim that the prosecution is politically motivated along with other efforts to dismiss the case. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week said the case could move forward to trial.
Hunter Biden was supposed to plead guilty last year to misdemeanor tax charges and would have avoided prosecution on the gun charges had he stayed out of trouble for two years. It was the culmination of a yearslong investigation by federal prosecutors into the business dealings of the president’s son, and the agreement would have dispensed with criminal proceedings and spared the Bidens weeks of headlines as the 2024 election loomed.
But the deal broke down after the judge who was supposed to sign off on the agreement instead raised a series of questions about it.
Hunter Biden was indicted on three gun firearms charges in Delaware and was charged separately in California, where he lives, with tax crimes.
He’s charged in the Delaware case with two counts of making false statements, first for checking a box falsely saying he was not addicted to drugs and second for giving it to the shop for its federally required records. A third count alleges he possessed the gun for about 11 days despite knowing he was a drug user.
In California, he’s charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors over at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed during between 2016 and 2019. Prosecutors have accused him of spending millions of dollars on an “extravagant lifestyle” instead of paying his taxes. The back taxes have since been paid.
___
Richer reported from Washington.