Hunter Biden entered a guilty plea to nine tax-related charges on Thursday, avoiding a protracted and possibly embarrassing trial for his father, President Joe Biden, following hours of legal wrangling and an eleventh-hour plea.
Hunter Biden was accused in December of last year, and U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi accepted his guilty plea to all of the tax-related allegations against him. The case is slated for sentencing on December 16.
The younger Biden may receive a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison and a fine of up to $1.35 million, according to Judge Scarsi.
CNN’s Jake Tapper and Evan Perez broke down the stunning scene as things unfolded in the courtroom:
TAPPER: “Speaking of a lot going on, it’s a very busy afternoon here at The Lead. We have another breaking news story for you right now involved — involving the Hunter Biden case out in California. Let’s go straight to CNN’S Evan Perez in Los Angeles. Evan, we talked to you in the last hour and Hunter Biden, despite what we believed he was going to do, actually offered to plead guilty. Any news on that?”
PEREZ: “Yes, Jake, the judge has now accepted Hunter’s formal plea for — to plead guilty on all nine counts that he was facing. Now, we spent the last couple of hours with prosecutors, spending — basically running through all 56 pages of this, of this indictment that goes through a lot of the behavior that prosecutors said he was doing during the time he was addicted to crack cocaine, earning millions of dollars, about $7 million during this time, but not paying his taxes. Instead, what prosecutors said, and they read all of these details out in court, they said he was spending his money on exotic dancers, on sex clubs, basically everything he was claiming as business expenses, and they were not business expenses. And so, at the end of that period, the judge, Mark Scarsi, asked Hunter Biden whether he pleaded guilty to each specific count. After each one, Hunter Biden said ‘guilty,’ and at the end of that the judge accepted the plea and he sent — and he scheduled sentencing for Hunter Biden on December 16th. Of course, that means both convictions for Hunter Biden, he was earlier this year was convicted on gun charges in Wilmington, Delaware, that sentencing is set for mid-November. So both of these now will be set for after the November election. The date there, of course, Jake, you know, is very key. The president of the United States has said that he is not going to pardon his son. the White House has said there’s not going to be a commutation. But those are obviously things when the president was still running for reelection. That is no longer the case. We’re expecting Hunter Biden to make his way out of the federal courthouse here in downtown Los Angeles any minute now. Keep in mind, Jake, you know, we spent a lot — we spent all day here, there were about 120 prospective jurors who came here expecting voir dire, which was the process by which it would select a jury. It was expected to take a couple of days. And None of that have happened because we saw what Hunter Biden was dead set on emerging from this courthouse without having to go through that expensive trial. Jake?”
TAPPER: “What kind of punishment do you think Hunter Biden is going to face now? Let’s — assuming he doesn’t get pardoned or commuted before theoretically whatever happens?”
PEREZ: “Yeah, the judge actually made sure to remind Hunter Biden of all of the, you know, the very severe sentences that could be coming from this guilty plea. He said that these nine offenses could add up to a maximum of 17 years in prison, Jake, and then also about $750,000 in fines, according to prosecutors. That was something that they made sure Hunter Biden understood before he accepted the plea. He said he did understand all of those circumstances, Jake.”
TAPPER: “All right, Evan Perez, thanks so much.”
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