Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has been indicted on Thursday with nine charges, including three felonies. He is accused of avoiding paying more than $1 million in taxes while living an extravagant and hard-partying lifestyle for four years.
The three felonies against President Biden’s 53-year-old son carry a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison if he is convicted on all counts. One count of tax evasion is for his personal taxes in 2018, and two counts of filing a false return are for his personal taxes in 2018 and for his company Owasco, PC’s corporate income tax return.
Hunter Biden has also been charged with six misdemeanor counts of failure to pay and failure to file for the tax years of 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.
“The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019,” special counsel David Weiss wrote in the 56-page indictment out of the Central District of California.
“In furtherance of that scheme,” Weiss noted that Hunter “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC by withdrawing millions from Owasco, PC” and “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.”
Hunter spent his cash 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,” according to the indictment.
Weiss highlighted that Biden used a business line of credit to make more than $27,000 in payments to a porn site, “which in total accounted for one-fifth of all of the business line of credit expenditures.”
The porn payments were among nearly $189,000 the first son spent on “adult entertainment” while not paying taxes, according to Weiss, including a $10,000 payment for a sex club membership that he expensed as a “golf club membership.”
He also claimed a false deduction for “consulting” that was “in truth and in fact” payments to “various women who were either romantically involved with or otherwise performing personal services” for Biden.
More than $680,000 went to these women while Biden wasn’t paying taxes.
“When he did finally file his 2018 returns, [Hunter] included false business deductions in order to evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities he faced as of February 2020,” the special counsel added.
Judge Mark Scarsi, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, has been assigned the case.
The scandal-scarred first son is already facing three felony counts related to false statements he made when purchasing a firearm. Weiss brought those charges against him in September, after a June plea deal fell apart in a Delaware courtroom.
Hunter has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison in the gun case.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley claims Biden avoided paying taxes on $8.3 million in income he received between 2014 and 2019, a period during which he sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and the Chinese private equity fund BHR Partners.
During the plea hearing, prosecutors noted to US District Judge Maryellen Noreika that the agreement did not preclude bringing charges against Biden later for other alleged crimes — such as possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.