For the second time in three months, Hunter Biden will face trial on federal charges — this time accusing him of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while blowing cash on strippers and pornography.
The first son — already a convicted felon — will head to Los Angeles federal court Thursday for jury selection in the case that could land him 17 years behind bars, if he’s convicted of the three felony and six misdemeanor charges he faces.
Prosecutors have said they plan to call some 30 witnesses to the stand — including a stripper who was paid by Hunter and someone who will testify that he shelled out $30,000 on pornography, all while allegedly dodging his taxes between 2016 and 2019, CNN reported.
Opening statements are slated for Monday.
LA trial lawyer and former prosecutor Neama Rahmani said the case, which could last two to three weeks, is “very straightforward,” and he believes Hunter is likely to be convicted — again.
“There really is no chance of him winning this case on the merits,” said Rahmani, who is not involved in Hunter’s case. “That’s why his lawyer blowing up that deal is such a huge mistake.”
Last year, Hunter was about to cop a sweetheart plea in the tax and a separate gun case that would’ve let him dodge hard time. But the agreement broke down when Hunter’s team insisted he receive blanket immunity — a term which special counsel David Weiss’ office could not agree to and the judge said she couldn’t sign off on.
In June, a Delaware jury convicted the first son, who had struggled with a crack cocaine addiction, on three counts related to him lying about his drug use in order to purchase a gun. That trial featured testimony from his exes, including his sister-in-law-turned-lover Hallie Biden, about his rampant crack addiction.
In the tax evasion trial, the defense has fought against the admission of evidence of Hunter’s alleged seedy spending, arguing that it’s solely meant to assassinate his character, his lawyer Mark Geragos argued at a hearing last month.
But prosecutors have said that the information will have to come out as they seek to prove that Hunter illegally wrote off the charges — including tens of thousands of dollars spent on wild parties and porn sites — as business expenses.
Hunter’s team has claimed any alleged tax crimes he committed were unwittingly made while he was high on crack and they’ve noted that his tab to Uncle Sam has since been paid back by his so-called “sugar brother” Kevin Morris.
Judge Mark Scarsi — who was appointed by former President Donald Trump — has said he’ll decide on the evidence as it comes up at trial.
But Scarsi has ruled that jurors won’t be able to hear that the taxes have been repaid, since it might wrongfully confuse them into thinking one can evade paying taxes as long as they eventually pay the debt.
Rahmani added that the fact that the tax bill was repaid isn’t “relevant because he didn’t file the returns at the time.”
That can be used as “mitigation at sentencing but it’s not evidence that a crime wasn’t committed,” Rahmani said.
The judge also barred the defense from calling an expert witness to testify about addiction and denied Hunter’s team’s bid to try to explain his addiction as arising from the 1972 car crash that killed his mom and sister or from his brother Beau Biden’s 2015 brain cancer death.
Scarsi also dealt blows to the prosecution when he decided it can’t suggest at trial that Hunter broke foreign agent lobbying laws or that the Obama administration — when Joe was vice president — carried out any misconduct.
Prosecutors wanted to show jurors evidence that Hunter’s work with Romanian oligarch Gabriel Popoviciu securing million-dollar deals while he was in the throes of drug addiction — undermined the defense argument that he was too high or drunk to pay his taxes.
Rahmani said most of Scarsi’s rulings on trial evidence favored the prosecution because he granted more of their motions. But the lawyer insisted the rulings were correct and fair.
For instance, Rahmani said it makes sense the judge wouldn’t allow evidence of the deaths in Hunter’s family to come into trial as an explanation for why he became an addict.
“That’s just a pure sympathy play and no judge is going to allow that,” the attorney said.
“The death of his brother, what does that have to do with whether someone knew they weren’t filing tax returns or deducting expenses for prostitutes and drugs as business expenses,” Rahmani said. “The purpose is to make people feel bad for him.”
Hunter faces up to 25 years behind bars at his Nov. 13 sentencing in the gun case, though he’s expected to get far less than that.
The president has maintained that he doesn’t plan to pardon or commute his son’s sentence but if he changes his mind, he could exercise presidential powers and dole out a get-out-of-jail-free card to Hunter before leaving office.
