President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, pleaded guilty Thursday to federal tax charges, a surprise move he said was meant to spare his family another painful and embarrassing criminal trial after his gun case conviction just months ago.
Hunter Biden's stunning decision to plead guilty to misdemeanour and felony charges without the benefits of a deal with prosecutors came hours after jury selection was supposed to begin in the case accusing him of failing to pay at least US$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.
"I will not subject my family to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment," Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement after he entered his plea. "For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this, and so I have decided to plead guilty."
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.
"Hunter put his family first today, and it was a brave and loving thing for him to do," defence attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Los Angeles.
Hunter Biden, 54, 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. He faces up to US$1.35 million in fines.
Sentencing is set for Dec. 16 in front of U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who was nominated to the bench by former president Donald Trump.
He faces sentencing in the Delaware case on Nov. 13 -- the week after the general election. Those charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, though he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.
Hunter Biden showed no emotion as he walked out the courthouse holding his wife's hand. He ignored questions shouted at him by reporters before climbing into an SUV and driving off.
It's the latest twist in a long-running saga over Hunter Biden's legal woes, which have cast a shadow over his father's political career.
More than 100 potential jurors had been brought to the courthouse 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.
Special counsel David Weiss' team 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.
After a break in the hearing, Hunter Biden's lawyers said he had decided to plead guilty to all nine charges.
Last year, it had looked like he was going to be spared prison time under a deal with prosecutors that would have allowed him to plead guilty to misdemeanour tax offences. Prosecutors would have recommended two years of probation and he would have escaped prosecution on a felony gun charge as long he stayed out of trouble for two years.
But the agreement imploded after a judge questioned unusual aspects of it, and Hunter Biden was subsequently indicted in the two cases. The defence has accused special counsel Weiss of caving to political pressure to indict the president's son after Trump and other Republicans blasted what they described as a "sweetheart deal."
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."
The charges in both the gun and tax cases stemmed from a period in Hunter Biden's life in which he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse before becoming sober in 2019. His lawyers had been expected to argue that his substance abuse struggles affected his decision-making and judgment, so he could not have acted "willfully," or with intention to break the tax law.
"As I have stated, addiction is not an excuse, but it is an explanation for some of my failures at issue in this case," Hunter Biden said in a statement. "When I was addicted, I wasn't thinking about my taxes, I was thinking about surviving. But the jury would never have heard that or know that I had paid every penny of my back taxes including penalties."
His decision to plead guilty 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 had 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.
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.
Prosecutors had also planned to introduce evidence about Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings, including his work for a Romanian businessman who prosecutors said in court papers sought to "influence U.S. government policy" while Joe Biden was vice president.
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Lauer reported from Philadelphia. AP writer Zeke Miller contributed from Washington.
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