Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, said in court that he did not do anything wrong when it comes to having a handgun illegally in Delaware.
The prosecutors say that Mr. Biden, who is 53 years old, did not tell the truth about using drugs when he filled out the forms to buy the weapon in 2018.
Mr Biden admitted to using a lot of crack cocaine, but he says he didn’t do anything illegal.
If he is found guilty of the three federal charges, he could be sent to prison for a maximum of 25 years.
A proposed agreement to settle the charges suddenly fell apart in July, so Mr. Biden was formally accused shortly after.
He was accused of telling lies twice and owning a gun illegally. The charges are about him buying a gun at a store in Delaware in October 2018. He had the gun for about 11 days.
According to Mr. Biden, as he wrote in his book published in 2021, he was heavily addicted to something at that time.
Two of the charges against him say that he could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison. This is because there are claims that Mr. Biden was not honest about his drug use on official documents. A third charge, linked to him having a gun while using drugs, can result in a sentence of up to five years.
In September, Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, filed a document in court where they asked for Mr. Biden to appear in court remotely instead of in person. In that document, Lowell also stated that Mr. Biden would say he is not guilty.
He showed up on Tuesday in a courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware – where the Bidens live.
Hallie Biden, who is the widow of Hunter’s brother Beau, found the gun in his car, which is the main point of the case. Biden threw the weapon into a trash can because she was worried he might use it to harm himself.
It was found and given back to the store, but not before it caused the police in Delaware and the US Secret Service to look into it separately.
In June, prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s lawyers made a deal. Hunter Biden agreed to admit that he had a gun illegally and he also promised to get help for his addiction and be watched by authorities. In simpler terms, he would also get in trouble for not paying his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, but with smaller charges called misdemeanors.
The judge, Maryellen Noreika, said she couldn’t simply approve the agreement without reviewing it carefully. She also said that the solution to the gun charge in the deal was not normal.
The tax charges were dropped in August, but prosecutors might bring them back again in Washington DC or California.
In September, Mr. Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service. He claimed that two of their agents wanted to purposely focus on him and make him feel ashamed by sharing his private tax information.
This situation could imply that Hunter Biden might have to go to court for a potential crime, at the same time his father is running for president again.
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