Hunter Biden, the United States President’s son, has been found guilty on three counts related to illegal gun possession after around three hours of deliberation by the jury.
The jury’s verdict followed a week-long trial in the Biden family’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. The trial featured often excruciating testimony about his addiction habit, much of it coming from his closest relatives.
It came after a decision by Hunter Biden, the oldest living son of Joe Biden, not to take the witness stand in his own defense.
The President’s son was accused of making two false statements when filling out a form to buy a Colt revolver in October 2018. First, he untruthfully stated that he was not addicted to or using drugs. Secondly, he declared the statement to be true. A third charge alleged he then illegally owned the gun for eleven days before his sister-in-law and then lover, Hallie Biden, discarded it in panic.
Hunter’s principal lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that the prosecution had provided no evidence he had taken crack cocaine. He later admitted in a memoir to having been addicted in the month he bought and owned the gun. This was prior to entering rehabilitation.
The defense lawyer also established that no one had seen Hunter use the drug in that period, according to The Guardian.
Hunter Biden’s text messages revealing of drug habit
Messages retrieved from Hunter Biden’s cell phone falsified the argument that he had not been taking drugs in the period prior to and after purchasing the gun. The day after he bought the gun, he sent a text to Hallie Biden saying he was meeting a known drug dealer called Mookie. Then, a day later, he revealed in another text that he was sleeping in a car and smoking crack.
Hunter’s daughter, Naomi Biden Neal, in testifying in his defense, told the court that her father had appeared sober in the weeks before the purchase. However, the prosecution introduced more text messages that betrayed a tense and diminishing relationship between the two, including one in which Naomi told her father he had driven her to breaking point.
The prosecution called other members of the Biden family, including Hunter’s former wife Kathleen Buhle to whom he was married for 24 years, and Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother Beau. This was in an attempt to show that Hunter’s drug use continued throughout 2018 and 2019.
The testimony produced an image of Hunter Biden plunging deeper into addiction as he struggled to cope with the death of Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. After the breakup of his marriage, he established a romantic relationship with Hallie Biden, who admitted to having smoked crack with him.
Summing up on Monday, Prosecutor Leo Wise said Hunter Biden’s text messages showed him trying to make drug deals before and after his gun purchase.