LOS ANGELES — Jury selection is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles federal court Thursday for Hunter Biden‘s trial on tax-related charges.
It’s the second ever criminal trial of a sitting president’s son, and the second for Biden this year.
Biden, 54, was indicted in December on three felony and six misdemeanor counts alleging that he failed to pay his taxes during a period when, he has said, he was in the throes of drug addiction, as well as when he got sober. The indictment says that “rather than pay his taxes, the Defendant spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle.”
Prosecutors say in the indictment that Biden “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, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020.”
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Jury selection is expected to take about two days, with opening statements tentatively scheduled for Monday.
Prosecutors have estimated their case will take six days to present to a jury and that more than two dozen witnesses will testify. Biden’s attorneys said their defense will take about two days.
The case, overseen on the prosecution side by special counsel David Weiss, is expected to include embarrassing and salacious testimony about Biden’s drug use and spending.
The 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,” the indictment said.
The spending included $1.6 million in ATM withdrawals, $683,000 on “various women” and $188,000 on “adult entertainment,” according to the indictment.
Prosecutors have also alleged that the returns Biden eventually filed were fraudulent, and falsely claimed as business expenses money that he paid to an escort, a strip club, a sex club membership fee, a pornographic website, and his daughter’s college tuition and rent.
One of Biden’s attorneys, Mark Geragos, has sought to exclude details about his client’s “extravagant lifestyle,” arguing the “salacious and tabloidy” details about his expenses were irrelevant.
Prosecutor Leo Wise countered at a hearing last month that those details are important, in part because Biden is alleged to have tried to write off some payments to escorts as business expenses.
U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi encouraged the two sides to work on reaching an agreement about what lifestyle evidence can be introduced at trial, and said that he will consider the admissibility of evidence related to Biden’s lifestyle and personal expenses on an “issue by issue” basis at trial.
Geragos also asked the judge to allow evidence about traumas that he said contributed to Biden’s addiction problems, including the death of his mother and his sister in a car accident when he was 3 years old and in the same car as them.
“The DOJ wants to paint a picture of a guy without a care in the world, partying at Chateau Marmont, without giving context as to what from his past may have affected him,” Geragos told the judge.
Scarsi denied the request, saying the car crash was too long ago and that “I don’t think the reason for the addiction is relevant” as to whether or not Biden committed the crimes he’s accused of.
Evidence of Biden’s history of addiction was at the center of a separate case prosecuted by Weiss’ office earlier this year in Delaware. Biden was convicted on three felony counts tied to possession of a gun while using narcotics.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced in that case on Nov. 12, and has said he plans to appeal the conviction.
Weiss was originally appointed by former President Donald Trump and kept on by the Justice Department under the Biden administration.
Katie Wall reported from Los Angeles, and Dareh Gregorian reported from New York.
