A court in the US state of California has rejected US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s request to have tax evasion charges against him dropped, according to a court document.
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“The petitions are rejected,” the materials say.
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Hunter Biden is charged with nine counts of evading $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2020. Prosecutors insist he instead spent millions of dollars on an “extravagant lifestyle,” including drugs and escorts. On the new charges, he faces up to 17 years in prison.
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Biden Jr.’s defense previously called the case against him politically motivated and based solely on his last name. The lawyers said special counsel David Weiss had caved in to Republican pressure to pursue an “unprecedented and unconstitutional” case of gun violations and now, “after five years of investigation with no new evidence,” a tax evasion case. The defense statement said that all tax debts had been paid in full, and the prosecution was ready to resolve the case outside the criminal framework.
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Hunter Biden himself explained his persecution by the Republican fight against his father. This was also discussed among those around the American leader, who, according to media reports, is most concerned about the situation around his son.
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Previously, Biden Jr. had already been charged with tax evasion; he made a plea deal, but the court did not approve it. At the time, it was a much more modest amount: Prosecutors believed he failed to pay more than $100,000 in 2017 and 2018, which would have put him in jail for 12 months on each count.
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Hunter Biden, 54, is the first child of a sitting US president to be prosecuted. In the first case, according to investigators, in 2018, when purchasing a Colt pistol, he provided incorrect information, denying drug use. Based on the totality of the charges brought against him, he faces up to 25 years in prison and a fine of $750 thousand, while a prison term in such cases for violations committed for the first time, as a rule, is not assigned.
