Hunter Biden pleads guilty to all 9 charges in tax evasion case before trial in Los Angeles

Los Angeles — Hunter Biden offered a surprise guilty plea in his tax evasion case on Thursday, capping a whirlwind day in court in Los Angeles, where jury selection in his trial was set to begin.

The president’s son entered an open plea — an offer to plead guilty and allow a judge to sentence him — on Thursday afternoon, admitting guilt to all nine charges. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 16. He faces up to 17 years in prison. 

“Do you agree you committed every element of the charges in the indictment?” U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi asked Biden. 

“Yes,” Biden responded. The judge accepted the plea.

Earlier in the day, Biden offered to accept a guilty verdict while maintaining his innocence in what’s known as an Alford plea. Prosecutors criticized the offer, calling it an “injustice” and “against the rule of law.” 

“Hunter Biden is not innocent. Hunter Biden is guilty,” prosecutor Leo Wise said, adding that Biden is not entitled to special conditions. 

Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, refuted the assertion that Biden was seeking special treatment, saying he was entitled to the same rights as everyone else who has entered an Alford plea.

U.S. attorneys are to consent to Alford pleas “in the most unusual of circumstances,” according to the Justice Manual, which contains Justice Department policies and procedures. And Alford pleas are to be accepted only after a recommendation has been approved by one of the three top Justice Department officials or the assistant attorney general responsible for the subject matter.

Biden was charged with failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes while living an “extravagant lifestyle.” 

In December, a federal grand jury charged the president’s son with three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor offenses, including failure to file and pay his taxes, tax evasion and filing a false return. 

The indictment chronicled more than $7 million in income Hunter Biden made from his foreign business dealings from 2016 through 2019, and how the president’s son spent nearly $5 million during that time period on “everything but his taxes.” Those expenses, according to the indictment, included drugs, escorts, lavish hotels, rental homes, luxury cars and clothing. Biden then allegedly falsely characterized those expenses as business expenses. 

“In each year in which he failed to pay his taxes, the defendant had sufficient funds available to him to pay some or all of his outstanding taxes when they were due. But he chose not to pay them,” the indictment said. 

Biden said he pleaded guilty because he could not subject his family “to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment.” 

“Like millions of Americans, I failed to file and pay my taxes on time. For that I am responsible,” he said in a statement. “As I have stated, addiction is not an excuse, but it is an explanation for some of my failures at issue in this case. When I was addicted, I wasn’t thinking about my taxes, I was thinking about surviving. But the jury would never have heard that or know that I had paid every penny of my back taxes including penalties.” 

Days before jury selection was scheduled to begin, the judge barred the defense from telling jurors that Biden eventually paid his outstanding tax obligations. 

“In tax cases, courts routinely exclude evidence that a defendant untimely filed tax returns or untimely paid outstanding tax debts,” the judge wrote. 

Prosecutors tried to blunt a potential defense that Biden’s struggle with substance abuse was to blame for his failure to file taxes on time from 2016 to 2019. The indictment said Biden was repeatedly reminded by his accountants, personal assistants and others about his income tax responsibilities. 

Biden pleaded not guilty to all of the charges in January. 

“I think Hunter Biden’s legal team reached the maybe noncontroversial conclusion that there’s no way he was going to win this case, and that standing trial would basically put a spotlight on all the sort of activities that he had engaged in over the last few years,” Tom Dupree, a former federal prosecutor, told CBS News. 

The political stakes of the trial diminished after the president ended his reelection campaign in July. Republicans have used Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings to accuse his father of corruption in their efforts to impeach the president. The impeachment push fizzled out over a lack of evidence showing that the president profited off of his son’s business dealings. 

“The big question is going to be whether President Biden on his last days in office pardons his son,” said Dupree, who expects the judge to impose a sentence of fewer than five years. 

The president said in June that he would not pardon his son or commute a potential prison sentence. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday a pardon and commutation are still off the table. 

Earlier this year in Delaware, the president’s son was convicted of three separate felony charges related to his purchase of a revolver in 2018 when, according to prosecutors, he was battling an addiction to illegal drugs and lied about it on paperwork to obtain the gun. 

The accusations in both cases stem from an investigation led by special counsel David Weiss that almost ended in a plea deal in which Biden would have pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges. He also would have avoided prosecution on a gun charge if he remained drug-free and stayed out of trouble. But the deal collapsed in July 2023 when a federal judge expressed concerns about it. 

Biden is scheduled to be sentenced in November in the gun case. 

Robert Legare

contributed to this report.