Hunter Biden enters surprise guilty plea to avoid tax trial months after his gun conviction

LOS ANGELES: Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in a surprise move that spares President Joe Biden and his family another likely embarrassing and painful criminal trial of the president's son.

Hunter Biden's stunning decision to guilty plea to misdemeanour and felony charges without the benefits of a deal with prosecutors came on Thursday, hours after jury selection was supposed to begin in the case accusing him of failing to pay at least USD 1.4 million in taxes.

The president's son was already facing potential prison time after his June conviction on felony gun charges in a trial that aired unflattering and salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction. The tax trial was expected to showcase more potentially lurid evidence as well as details about Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings, which Republicans have seized on to try to paint the Biden family as corrupt.

Although President Joe Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election muted the potential political implications of the tax case, the trial was expected to carry a heavy emotional toll for the president in the final months of his five-decade political career.

"Enough is enough," defence attorney Abbe Lowell told the judge before Hunter Biden entered his plea. "Mr. Biden is prepared, because of the public and private interest, to proceed today and finish this."

Hunter Biden quickly responded "guilty" as the judge read out each of the nine counts. The charges carry up to 17 years behind bars, but federal sentencing guidelines are likely to call for a much shorter sentence. Sentencing is set for December 16.

More than 100 potential jurors had been brought to the courthouse in Los Angeles on Thursday to begin the process of picking the panel to hear the case alleging a four-year scheme to avoid paying taxes while spending wildly on things like strippers, luxury hotels and exotic cars.

Prosecutors were caught off guard when Hunter Biden's lawyer told the judge Thursday morning that Hunter wanted to enter what's known as an Alford plea, under which a defendant maintains their innocence but acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction.

Prosecutors said they objected to such a plea, telling the judge that Hunter Biden "is not entitled to plead guilty on special terms that apply only to him".

"Hunter Biden is not innocent. Hunter Biden is guilty," prosecutor Leo Wise said.

Hunter Biden walked into the courtroom holding hands with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and flanked by Secret Service agents. Initially, he pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his 2016 through 2019 taxes and his attorneys had indicated they would argue he didn't act "willfully", or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.

Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanour tax offences last year in a deal with the Justice Department that would allow him to avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble. But the agreement imploded after a judge questioned unusual aspects of it, and he was subsequently indicted in the two cases.

His decision to change his plea Thursday came after the judge issued some unfavourable pre-trial rulings for the defence, including rejecting a proposed defence expert lined up to testify about addiction.

Scarsi, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, also placed some restrictions on what jurors would be allowed to hear about the traumatic events that Hunter Biden's family, friends and attorneys say led to his drug addiction.

The judge barred attorneys from connecting his substance abuse struggles to the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from cancer or the car accident that killed his mother and sister when he was a toddler.

The indictment alleged that Hunter Biden lived lavishly while flouting the tax law, spending his cash on things like strippers and luxury hotels — "in short, everything but his taxes".

Hunter Biden's attorneys had asked Scarsi to also limit prosecutors from highlighting details of his expenses that they say amount to a "character assassination", including payments made to strippers or pornographic websites. The judge has said in court papers that he will maintain "strict control" over the presentation of potentially salacious evidence.

Prosecutors had said they want to introduce evidence about Hunter Biden's overseas dealings, which have been at the centre of Republican investigations into the Biden family often seeking — without evidence — to tie the president to an alleged influence peddling scheme.

The special counsel's team had planned to have a business associate of Hunter Biden's testify about their work for a Romanian businessman, who prosecutors say sought to "influence US government policy" while Joe Biden was vice president.

Sentencing in Hunter Biden's Delaware conviction is set for November 13. He could face up to 25 years in prison in that case, though he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.