NEWSWEEK
Hunter Biden spent hundreds of thousands on “constant partying,” according to prosecutors in an indictment that hit the president’s son with a total of nine tax charges.
The indictment brought in California alleges Biden spent money on prostitution, online pornography and hiring luxury cars among other things including $10,000 on a sex club membership.
It states money was spent 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.”
A total of $1.4 million in taxes was allegedly evaded and Biden faces up to 17 years behind bars. He is accused of “willfully” avoiding paying his taxes and faces three felony charges and six misdemeanor charges.
The charges relate to a time between 2016 and 2019, a period during which Biden has acknowledged he was addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine. A total of over $1.6 million was taken from cash machines during this period, the indictment said. Newsweek has contacted representatives of Biden’s family for comment via email.
The 53-year-old was able to avoid tax, prosecutors say, by claiming a number of luxuries as simple business deductions. For example, deductions claimed as “legal professional and consulting” contributed to the payment of his daughter’s law school tuition, while “travel, transportation and other” was instead used for “house rentals for his then-girlfriend” as well as rent for one of his daughters, per the indictment.
Further “office and miscellaneous” deductions allegedly helped Biden with the “purchase of luxury clothing, payments to escorts and dancers, and payments for his daughter’s college advising services.”
Listed in the indictment are the following alleged payments:
- ‘Various women’ – $683,212
- Clothing and accessories – $397,530
- Educational purposes – $309,277
- Health, beauty, pharmacy – $237,496
- Miscellaneous retail purchases – $236,634
- Groceries and restaurants – $214,923
- Insurance – $203,815
- Loan and mortgage payments – 191,873
- Adult entertainment – 188,960
- Legal and accounting fees – $147,566
- Telephone and utilities – $118,440
- Rehab – $71,869
- Credit card payments – $58,542
- Advisors from Wells Fargo – $53,000
- Home and childcare – $39,801
- Entertainment – $24,445
- Sports and recreation – $23,567
The total payments listed in the indictment amount to $4,907,813.
In light of the charges, Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said his client had paid his tax debts and is sober.
“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 Los Angeles Times reported. “Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence—and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full—the U.S. attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors.”
Lowell was referring to a failed plea deal earlier this year in which Biden was due to agree to firearm and tax violations. It fell through and a new indictment in Delaware under U.S. Attorney David Weiss was filed in which Biden is accused of lying about his drug use in 2018 while purchasing a gun. He has denied the charges.
In the California indictment, prosecutors said Biden was able to earn an income that was “substantial,” with most of it coming from Owasco, PC, Biden’s company. Further funds were allegedly put through a company Biden owned a 75 percent stake in named Skaneateles.
More of Biden’s income was earned from Hong Kong business State Energy HK and a relationship with CEFC China Energy.
In 2014, Burisma Holdings Limited began paying Biden an annual salary starting at $1 million, which was later halved in 2017. In 2015, Biden agreed to aid a Romanian businessperson “contest bribery charges he was facing in his home country” after an oral agreement.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
