Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, is supposed to say that he did not do anything wrong when it comes to having a handgun that he wasn’t allowed to have. He will tell this to a judge on Tuesday.
Prosecutors say that Mr. Biden, who is 53 years old, lied about using drugs when he filled out forms to buy the gun in 2018.
Mr Biden admitted that he used a lot of crack cocaine before, but he says he did not break any laws.
He could go to prison for 25 years if he is found guilty of the three federal charges.
In July, a suggested agreement to settle the charges suddenly fell apart, so Mr. Biden was formally accused not long after.
All of the charges are about him buying a gun from a store in Delaware in October 2018. He had the gun for around 11 days.
In a book he wrote in 2021, Mr. Biden confessed that he was really addicted to something at that time.
Mr Biden is facing two criminal charges, each with a potential punishment of up to 10 years in prison. These charges are based on claims that he lied about his drug use on official documents. A third charge, connected to him having a gun while using drugs, can lead to a maximum of five years in prison.
In September, Mr Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, filed a document in court requesting a virtual court appearance instead of an in-person one. However, the request was not granted. In the document, Lowell mentioned that his client, Mr Biden, would say he is not guilty.
He will go to a federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, where the Bidens are from.
Hallie Biden, the wife of Hunter’s brother Beau, found the gun in his car. Biden placed the weapon in a trash bin because she was worried he might use it to harm himself.
They found it later and gave it back to the store, but before that, the Delaware police and the US Secret Service checked it separately.
In June, prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s lawyers made a two-part agreement. In this agreement, Hunter Biden agreed to admit that he had a gun when he wasn’t supposed to and get help for his addiction. The agreement also included monitoring his progress. In that agreement, he would also be accused of two smaller crimes for not paying his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018.
However, the agreement that would have helped Mr. Biden avoid being charged with a serious crime and being sent to jail, did not work out in July. The judge, Maryellen Noreika, stated that she couldn’t simply approve the agreement without further consideration. She also described the deal’s suggested solution to the gun charge as “strange”.
The tax charges were dropped in August, but prosecutors will probably bring them back or file new ones in Washington DC or California.
In September, Mr. Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service because he believed that two agents were trying to harm him by sharing his private tax information.
The situation could lead to Hunter Biden going to court for a crime while his dad runs for president again.
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