The son of the US President Hunter evaded taxes and spent a lot of money on dubious pleasures
The son of the US President Hunter Biden has been criminally charged with nine counts of alleged tax evasion. The 56-page indictment accuses the president's ne'er-do-well, over-aged scion of evading $1.4 million in taxes from 2016-19 and funding an «extravagant lifestyle.»
Hunter Biden. Photo: Wikipedia.org.
Much of the recovering crack addict's alleged illegal activity took place while his father was US vice president under Barack Obama, the BBC recalls.
“While Joe Biden was finishing up his last year as vice president, his son Hunter Biden cooked crack and acted in porn in anticipation of the family’s most lucrative deal,” the conservative Fox News channel commented on the actions of the father and son.
“He spent lavishly on strip clubs, adult video sites and prostitutes,” Fox News quoted Judge Jeanine Pirro as saying. “As a low-level porn star, he frequently filmed his wild sex life and uploaded the footage to his Pornhub account.”
However, the current US President himself is not accused of wrongdoing and is not even mentioned in the latest indictment. But his son, a Yale-educated lawyer, faces up to 17 years in prison if convicted. Hunter Biden was already indicted on a separate federal indictment on weapons charges in September.
The indictment says the president's son spent his money on «drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other personal items, in short, on everything except his taxes.»
His expenses were about $1 million in 2016, $1.4 million in 2017, $1.8 million in 2018 and $600,000 in 2019, according to his payroll. Between 2016 and 2019, he withdrew $1.6 million from ATMs alone.
During the same period, prosecutors said, he spent more than $683,000 on “payments to various women,” another $188,960 on “adult entertainment,” $397,530 on clothing and accessories and $237,496 on health care, beauty and pharmacy expenses.
The case file lists many of the luxury hotels where Hunter Biden stayed during the years when he decided not to have a permanent residence. Most of them were in Los Angeles, New York and Washington. He used the hotels «for constant partying,» prosecutors say.
Other funds went towards renting a Lamborghini, which he used after moving to the West Coast while waiting for his Porsche to be shipped.
Payments included $1,500 to an exotic dancer at a strip club, $11,500 to an “escort” who was paid “for to spend two nights with him,» $27,316 in payments to an online pornography website and $10,000 «for purchasing a membership to a sex club.»
Hunter Biden told BBC News that his father «rescued» him several times when he was stranded due to his battle with addiction
To avoid higher tax bills, prosecutors say the younger Biden claimed about numerous personal expenses as business deductions. According to the indictment, the luxury car and hotel rental business was declared to be a «travel, transportation and other» business.
He deducted academic tutoring for his daughter as «professional legal assistance and consulting» and claimed payments to escorts and dancers as «office expenses and other.»
In 2018, Hunter Biden assigned a personal assistant to «process payroll and provide medical benefits to three women with whom he had romantic or sexual relationships, and to a fourth woman who was a relative of one of those women.»
An Arkansas woman with whom he had a child was among those he hired, notes the BBC.
In the throes of a crack and cocaine addiction, the younger Biden «claimed extensive business travel in 2018 when he had none.»
Prosecutors say Hunter Biden's memoir, «Beautiful Things,» makes explicit What the indictment alleges is that he did not have numerous business deals in 2018, but instead spent his money on months-long drug and alcohol binges.
Working with California accountants in 2018, he reported expenses including $388,810 in business travel, despite writing in his book that the year was «dominated by crack use» twenty-four hours a day, smoking every fifteen minutes , seven days a week.»
Prosecutors say if accountants had known about the drug use, they would have taken a closer look at «his claims of hundreds of thousands of dollars in business expenses.»
Beginning in April 2018 and over the next few months, Hunter Biden surrounded himself with a crew of «thieves, drug addicts, small-time dealers, visiting strippers, con men and assorted hangers-on,» he wrote in his memoir.
Luxury hotels, mentioned in the indictment correspond to «the same hotels that the defendant identified by name in his memoirs as the sites of his months-long drug and alcohol abuse,» court documents say.
Hunter Biden talks about staying «at Sunset Tower, Sixty Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Roosevelt» and on a list of other California hotels. He describes his entourage as «flashing with fake Rolexes» and bringing with them «their stripper girlfriends.»
«They drank the entire minibar, ordered filet mignon and a bottle of Dom Perignon to the room.» — reads part of the defendant's memoirs, prosecutors note.
They point out that «the defendant did not write that he conducted any business at any of these luxury hotels, and did not describe any of the individuals who visited him there as doing it for some business purpose.»
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