Struggles and Scandals of Joe Biden's Son Hunter Revealed — as He Enters Surprise Guilty Plea to Dodge Tax Trial and Up to 17 Years in Jail
The outgoing President pardoned his son Hunter after he was convicted of three firearm charges.
Sept. 6 2024, Published 9:30 a.m. ET
He has acknowledged a decades-long addiction to alcohol and crack-cocaine, and his overseas business dealings have led to questions about his father's influence.
And now RadarOnline.com can reveal Hunter Biden's past struggles and scandals are back in the spotlight after he entered a surprise guilty plea to dodge a $1.4million federal tax trial on Thursday – and now faces up to 17 years in prison.
President Joe Biden's 54-year-old son said upon his surprise guilty plea: "I will not subject my family to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment.
"For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this, and so I have decided to plead guilty."
The president's 54-year-old son became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a criminal offense.
But Hunter's troubles first started in 1972 when, at only two years old, his mother Neilia and baby sister Naomi were killed when a truck rammed into the family's car. Neilia was 30. Naomi was just thirteen-months-old.
The accident, which unfolded in Delaware on December 18, came less than six weeks after Hunter's father was elected to the US Senate. Hunter suffered a fractured skull in the crash and his older brother Beau was left with a broken leg.
Joe Biden, who was not in the car at the time of the fatal wreck, later took his oath of office at Hunter and Beau's hospital bedsides. He was 30 at the time.
Flash forward to 2015, and the Biden family was struck by more tragedy. Beau Biden, President Biden's son and Hunter's older brother, passed away from brain cancer on May 30. He was 46.
Hunter's daughter Naomi, now 30, wrote at the time: "He and Beau were one. One heart, one soul, one mind."
The death of his brother saw Hunter relapse back into alcohol and crack cocaine addiction. It also led to the collapse of his marriage to first wife Kathleen Buhle.
Hunter's first wife testified during his federal gun trial in Wilmington, Delaware in June.
Buhle, now 55, accused her tormented husband of 24 years of "spending extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he had sexual relations) while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills" during their ugly divorce in 2017.
Hunter began dating his late brother's widow, Hallie Biden, now 51, amid his divorce from Buhle. He and Hallie split in 2019 shortly after Joe Biden announced his bid for the 2020 White House.
The troubled first son also faced a paternity suit after Lunden Roberts, a stripper who lives in Arkansas, gave birth to Hunter's daughter Navy Joan Roberts in August 2018.
Although President Biden's son said he had "no recollection" of having sex with Roberts – and said he had engaged in "rampages" with women after his divorce – in his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things, a 2019 DNA test found Hunter to be Navy's father.
He was ordered to start paying monthly child support to Roberts beginning in 2020. His payments were reduced to just $5,000 a month last year.
Hunter was recently pardoned by Biden having been convicted of gun charges and pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion.
Another scandal began in April 2019 when Hunter abandoned a broken laptop with "alarming" and "embarrassing" content at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware owned by John Paul Mac Isaac.
The crack and sex-fueled computer was at the center of the "Russian disinformation campaign" controversy in October 2020, and thousands of videos, pictures, messages and emails from the laptop have since been leaked online.
Many of the leaked files appear to show President Biden's son smoking crack cocaine and having sex with prostitutes.
But Hunter's real legal troubles began in October 2018 when he bought a .38-caliber handgun from a gun store in Wilmington, Delaware. Although he asserted on a US government form he was not using drugs at the time of the purchase, it was later found Hunter was still struggling with his addiction to crack cocaine.
An investigation was launched after Hallie Biden disposed of the firearm in a trash can outside a supermarket near her home.
Hunter was ultimately found guilty of three federal gun charges on June 11, 2024 after being indicted in September 2023.
The charges included one count of making a false statement in the purchase of a firearm, one count of making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearm licensed dealer and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.
Hunter was found guilty of three federal gun charges on June 11, 2024. The picture on the right is from the first son's abandoned laptop.
President Biden said after his son's guilty gun verdict: "As I said last week, I am the president, but I am also a dad.
"Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. As I also said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal."
A federal grand jury also charged Hunter with a scheme to evade taxes on more than $1million in income from foreign businesses in December 2023.
While he initially pleaded not guilty to the nine charges – including evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes and filing a false or fraudulent tax return – Hunter suddenly agreed to plead guilty as the trial was kicking off on Thursday.
Hunter and his wife Melissa Cohen, 38, hold hands outside the Wilmington, Delaware courthouse shortly before his federal gun conviction.
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The charges carry a sentence of up to 17 years behind bars and Hunter also faces up to $1.35million in fines. Sentencing is set for December 16, while a sentencing hearing in the case related to his gun charges is scheduled for November 13. He faces 25 years in prison for those charges.
Hunter's lawyer Abbe Lowell, 72, said shortly before Hunter's surprise guilty plea in Los Angeles on Thursday: "Enough is enough. It's time to move on."
President Biden, who has faced scrutiny and an impeachment inquiry from House Republicans over his son's sketchy overseas business dealings, said he would not pardon Hunter if found guilty in the federal gun and tax cases.
The 81-year-old president has since ended his 2024 re-election campaign and dropped out of this year's race for the White House.
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