Hunter Biden has been found guilty of all three felony counts related to the purchase of a handgun in 2018 when prosecutors say he lied on a required gun purchase form by saying he was not an illegal user or addict of drugs.
Jurors found Hunter Biden guilty of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false statement on the application that he did not use drugs and illegally possessing the gun for 11 days.
As the verdict was read, Biden stared straight ahead and showed little emotion. After the verdict, he patted his defense attorney on the shoulder.
He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison when sentenced by Judge Maryellen Noreika, although first-time offenders do not receive anywhere near the maximum, and it is unclear whether she would give him time behind bars.
Now, Hunter Biden and former President Trump, President Joe Biden’s main political rival, have been convicted by American juries in an election year that has revolved as much about the courts as it has about campaign events and rallies.
Joe Biden has stayed away from the federal courtroom in Delaware where his son was tried and has said little about the case, wary of appearing to interfere in a criminal matter handled by his own Justice Department.
But the Democrat’s allies have worried about the effect the trial, and now conviction, will have on the 81-year-old, who has long worried about the health and sobriety of his only living son.
Joe Biden has said he would accept the results of the verdict and would not seek to pardon his son.
Hunter Biden’s legal problems are not over. He faces a trial in September in California on allegations of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have signaled that they will continue to pursue him in their stalled attempt to remove the president. The president has not been accused of any crime by prosecutors investigating his son.
The prosecution spent much of the trial highlighting the severity of Hunter Biden’s drug problem, using highly personal testimony and embarrassing evidence.
Jurors heard Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend testify about his habitual crack use and her failed efforts to help him detox.
Jurors saw images of the president’s son bare-chested and disheveled in a dirty room, and half-naked holding crack pipes. And they saw a video in which he weighed his cocaine on a scale.
Hunter Biden did not testify, but jurors heard his voice when prosecutors played audio excerpts from his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” in which he talks about hitting rock bottom following the death of his brother Beau in 2015, and his descent. to drugs before his eventual sobriety.
Prosecutors believed the evidence was necessary to show that Hunter, 54, was in the throes of addiction when he purchased the gun and therefore lied by checking “no” on the form that asked whether he was an “illegal drug user or addicted to them.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell had argued that Hunter Biden’s mental state was different when he wrote the book than when he bought the gun, when he did not believe he had an addiction.
Additionally, he suggested that Hunter Biden might have felt like he had a drinking problem at the time, but not a drug problem. Alcohol abuse does not prevent the purchase of weapons.
Hunter Biden had hoped last year to resolve a long-running federal investigation under a deal with prosecutors that would avoid the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election.
He has also stated that he was charged because the Justice Department bowed to pressure from Republicans who argued that the Democratic president’s son was receiving special treatment.
The reason law enforcement raised any questions about the revolver is because Hallie Biden, Beau’s widow, found it unloaded in Hunter’s truck on October 23, 2018, panicked and threw it into a bucket of trash at Janssen’s Market, where a man inadvertently pulled it out of the trash.
She testified about the episode in court.
Hallie Biden, who was romantically involved with Hunter after Beau’s death, ended up calling the police.
Officers recovered the gun from the man who inadvertently removed it along with other recyclable items from the trash.
The case was ultimately closed due to lack of cooperation from Hunter Biden, who was considered the victim.
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