Hunter Biden has been charged with nine criminal counts in a long-running Justice Department investigation into his taxes. The U.S. President Joe Biden’s son was charged by a grand jury in California.
The new charges are in addition to federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging Hunter Biden broke laws with the purchase of a gun during a period he has acknowledged being addicted to drugs in 2018.
What are the new charges against Hunter Biden?
Hunter Biden, 53, faces three counts each of evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return, according to the 56-page indictment.
Hunter Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” special counsel David Weiss said in a statement. Hunter Biden “engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million” in taxes that he owed from 2016 through 2019, according to the special counsel’s team. The back taxes have since been paid.
Some of the conduct described in the indictment dates to when Hunter Biden had said he was struggling with addiction and depression. However, prosecutors charge that he failed to fully pay taxes he owed even after he had said he was sober.
The indictment states that “between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the Defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”
They say the president’s son “individually received more than $7 million in total gross income” between 2016 and 2020, but “willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes.”
The new charges against Hunter Biden include filing a false return and tax evasion felonies, as well as misdemeanor failure to file and failure to pay. Prosecutors allege that he included “false business deductions in order to evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities he faced.”
Read the indictment here.
Hunter Biden faces 17 years in prison if convicted
In a news release announcing the charges, the U.S. Justice Department said Hunter Biden could face a maximum of 17 years in prison if convicted of the charges. The special counsel probe remains open, Weiss said.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said his client repaid his taxes in full two years ago and that Weiss had not granted Lowell’s request days ago for a “customary meeting” to discuss the tax investigation.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell accused Weiss of “bowing to Republican pressure” in the case. “Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought,” Lowell said.
The White House declined to comment on the indictment.
