LOS ANGELES — Jury selection is set to begin Thursday in Hunter Biden’s federal tax trial, just months after the president’s son was convicted of gun-related charges in a separate case.
The case in federal court in Los Angeles accuses Hunter Biden of running a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while collecting millions of dollars from foreign business entities. He already faces prison time after a Delaware jury convicted him in June of lying on a 2018 federal form to buy a gun he owned for 11 days.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to charges related to his taxes from 2016 to 2019, and his lawyers have indicated they will argue that he did not act “willfully” or with intent to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, appointed to the post by former President Donald Trump, has imposed some restrictions on what jurors will be allowed to hear about the traumatic events that Hunter Biden’s family, friends and lawyers say led to his drug addiction.
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The judge barred attorneys from linking his drug addiction problems to the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from cancer or to the car crash that killed his mother and sister when he was a toddler. He also rejected a defense expert’s offer to testify about drug addiction.
The indictment alleges that Hunter Biden lived lavishly while flouting tax laws, spending his money on things like strippers and luxury hotels — “in short, everything but his taxes.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have asked Scarsi to also limit prosecutors’ ability to highlight details of his spending that they say constitute “defamation of character,” including payments to strippers or pornographic websites. The judge said in court papers that he would maintain “strict control” over the presentation of potentially salacious evidence.
Meanwhile, prosecutors could present more details about Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings, which have been at the center of Republican investigations into the Biden family, often seeking — without evidence — to link the president to an alleged influence-peddling scheme.
The special counsel’s team said it wanted to inform jurors about Hunter Biden’s work for a Romanian businessman they said sought to “influence U.S. government policy” while Joe Biden was vice president.
The defense accused prosecutors of leaking details about Hunter Biden’s work for Romania in court documents to generate media coverage and taint the jury pool.
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The judge will ask a group of potential jurors a series of questions to determine whether they can serve on the jury, including whether their political views and knowledge of the case would prevent them from being impartial.
Potential jurors will be asked questions about their family and personal drug history, as well as any tax problems and past dealings with the Internal Revenue Service. And despite President Joe Biden dropping his reelection bid, they will also be asked questions about whether they could be subject to politically motivated criminal prosecution.
A highly scrutinized plea and diversion deal that would have prevented either trial from moving forward fell apart in July 2023 during questioning by a judge. The special counsel indicted Hunter Biden shortly thereafter, splitting the deal into two parts: the Delaware gun case and the California tax case.
Hunter Biden’s sentencing in Delaware is scheduled for Nov. 13. He faces up to 25 years in prison, but as a first-time offender, he is likely to get much less time or avoid prison altogether.
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