Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was convicted Tuesday of illegally purchasing and possessing a gun while addicted to crack cocaine.
The guilty verdict, handed down by a federal jury in Delaware after about three hours of deliberations, capped a weeklong trial in which prosecutors elicited testimony from Biden’s ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend and his sister-in-law turned lover. all of whom spoke in graphic detail about his addiction to drugs and alcohol, with First Lady Jill Biden often sitting in the front row.
Biden stood trial on three charges, and the jury convicted him of all three: lying on a federal background check about his crack addiction to buy a Colt revolver, making a false statement to a federal firearms dealer, and possessing a handgun. while being an illegal drug user.
As the verdict was read by Judge Maryellen Noreika’s clerk, Biden sat impassively. He then kissed his wife Melissa and hugged his lawyer, Abbe Lowell.
The proceedings moved quickly and the first lady did not reach the courthouse until after it had concluded. Wearing sunglasses, she walked to the room where her son huddled with other family members and his legal team.
In an election year, the verdict was sure to be seized upon by political opponents of Hunter’s father, President Biden, and seen as a victory for Republican leaders who criticized a plea deal on similar charges last year. The deal unraveled after questioning by Noreika – the same judge who presided over the trial – paving the way for the indictment on the gun charges.
A second criminal trial against Hunter Biden is scheduled for September in Los Angeles, where the Malibu resident faces federal charges of tax evasion and failing to pay his taxes on time.
Biden’s conviction comes less than two weeks after his father’s presidential election opponent, Donald Trump, was convicted by a New York jury of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
The testimony in Hunter Biden’s gun case focused largely on Biden’s response to an October 12, 2018, background check question that asked, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any other depressant, stimulant, narcotic or other controlled substance?”
Hunter checked “No.”
Lowell, the defense attorney, highlighted the limited evidence of Biden’s drug use around the time he bought the revolver, that the gun seller had not observed him to be intoxicated or had glassy eyes, and that no witnesses had seen him use drugs in jail. days later, when he possessed the gun.
Lowell claimed the gun was never fired and remained locked until the widow of Hunter’s brother, Hallie Biden, found it on the morning of October 23, 2018 and, in a panic, threw it into a trash bin outside a nearby supermarket. Hunter, who was dating Hallie at the time, urged her to retrieve the gun as soon as he discovered it was missing, asking her, “Are you crazy?”
But when Hallie Biden returned to the grocery store, the gun was gone from the trash and Hunter instructed her to contact police.
“It’s time to end this case,” Lowell said in his closing argument Monday.
But prosecutors told jurors there was “overwhelming evidence” of Hunter Biden’s drug use in the years before and the months after purchasing the gun.
“If this evidence does not establish that Hunter Biden is a crack addict and an unlawful user, then no one is a crack addict and an unlawful user,” said Asst. Special Counsel Derek Hines in his closing argument.
Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, testified that she found a crack pipe at their home in 2015 and regularly searched his car for drug paraphernalia. Zoe Kestan, an ex-girlfriend, told jurors about the night she met Hunter at a gentleman’s club in Manhattan, where she was working at the time.
Within minutes of going into a private room with him in 2018, she recalled, he started smoking crack. That evening began a bicoastal relationship that saw the pair holed up in a series of luxury hotels – the SoHo Grand, the Mercer, Four Seasons in Manhattan, the Chateau Marmont and the Roosevelt in Hollywood – where he abused crack and called up dealers every 20 minutes. to feed his habit, Kestan testified.
Hallie Biden’s turn on the witness stand may have proven the most critical.
Prosecutors emphasized that in response to her calls and text messages asking where he was in mid-October 2018, two days after he bought the gun, Hunter responded that he was “smoking crack” in downtown Wilmington.
Hallie Biden testified that she saw Hunter Biden late at night or early in the morning on October 23, 2018, and that he appeared exhausted. In his truck, she said, she discovered drug paraphernalia and “residue” of crack cocaine, along with the gun. She put the gun in a leather pouch she said she found in his car — the same pouch that federal investigators tested last year, finding traces of cocaine.
Under cross-examination by Lowell, Hallie Biden’s memory seemed shaky at times — she couldn’t say what “paraphernalia” she found in the car, and she acknowledged that Hunter often lied to her about his whereabouts. She also said she did not see Hunter Biden using drugs during this time.
But her testimony appeared to undermine the defense’s claim that Hunter Biden was sober when he possessed the Colt revolver.
“He said he was ‘smoking crack,’” Hines reminded jurors in his closing argument. Referring to this and Hunter Biden’s candid 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” which provides a harrowing account of his addiction to crack and subsequent recovery, Hines said, “Believe his words in his book, because he knew… he was an addict and an unlawful user.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
