By Tom Hals
WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – Hunter BidenThe criminal trial on gun charges will begin in earnest Tuesday with opening statements and potentially lurid testimony about drug use from his autobiography and phone messages that prosecutors say incriminate the president’s son.
Hunter Biden, 54, is accused of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he purchased a Colt Cobra .38-caliber revolver and of illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days in October 2018.
He has denied being guilty of the three charges. Hunter Biden is the first child of a sitting president to face criminal charges.
The proceedings at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, the Bidens’ hometown, come just days after Republican Donald Trump, Democratic President Joe Biden’s rival for the Nov. 5 U.S. elections, became the first former president to plead guilty was found to have committed a crime.
The lawsuit is expected to focus on Hunter Biden’s years of crack cocaine use and addiction, which he has publicly discussed and which was a prominent part of his 2021 autobiography, “Beautiful Things.” He told U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika during a hearing last year that he has been sober since mid-2019.
Prosecutors will try to prove that Hunter Biden knew he was lying when he checked the “no” box next to a question on a federal gun purchase form that asked whether he was an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss is expected to call FBI Agent Erika Jensen to testify about Hunter Biden’s posts discussing his drug use and Hunter Biden’s autobiography, “Beautiful Things.”
“I slept in a car smoking crack at 4th Street and Rodney,” was one of the messages prosecutors made public in a lawsuit. In another, Hunter Biden said he was standing behind a minor league baseball stadium in Wilmington “waiting for a dealer named Mookie.”
Prosecutors said they may call as a witness his former wife, Kathleen Buhle, who accused Hunter Biden in their 2017 divorce proceedings of wasting money on drugs, alcohol and prostitutes.
Twelve jurors and four alternates were sworn in Monday, many describing their own experiences with family members and friends battling substance abuse. All twelve jurors must agree that Hunter Biden is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to convict.
Weiss, a Trump appointee, has separately hit Hunter Biden with federal taxes in California.
The trial comes days after Trump was convicted by a jury in state court in New York of 34 felonies for falsifying documents to cover up hush money paid to a porn star to prevent a sex scandal shortly before the 2016 US election. which got him into trouble. White House.
The trial against Hunter Biden gives Republicans an opportunity to divert attention from Trump’s legal problems. Trump will be sentenced on July 11 in New York. He has pleaded not guilty in three other ongoing criminal cases, two of which related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and one alleging that he unlawfully retained classified national security documents after leaving office in January 2021.
If convicted of all charges in the Delaware case, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, although defendants generally receive shorter sentences, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Noreika, also a Trump appointee, this weekend entered multiple orders sought by prosecutors that appeared to undermine Biden’s legal strategy.
The judge said Biden’s legal team failed to present expert testimony that people suffering from substance abuse may not consider themselves addicts.
(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; Editing by Leslie Adler)
