LOS ANGELES (news agencies) — Hunter Biden plans to change his not guilty plea to avoid going to trial on federal tax evasion charges , his defense attorney said Thursday, appearing to surprise prosecutors and the judge just as jury selection was set to begin.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the judge that the evidence against Hunter Biden is “overwhelming” and that the president’s son wants to resolve the case with a plea instead of going to trial for a second time just months after he was convicted of felony gun charges in a separate case.
Hunter Biden is proposing to enter what’s referred to as an Alford plea, an unusual plea under which a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction, Mark Geragos, another Hunter Biden attorney, said in a text message.
“There is overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” Lowell told the judge. “This can be resolved today. It’s not a complicated issue.”
The Justice Department charged Hunter Biden with misdemeanor and felony charges over what prosecutors say was a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while pulling in millions of dollars from foreign business entities. He is already confronting potential prison time after a Delaware jury convicted him in June of lying on a 2018 federal form to purchase a gun that he possessed for 11 days.
The defense’s announcement appeared to catch prosecutors and the judge off guard at Los Angeles’ federal courthouse, where more than 100 potential jurors had been brought to begin questioning Thursday. Opening statements in the case were expected Monday.
A last-minute plea would allow Hunter Biden to avoid a trial that was expected to put a spotlight on his foreign business dealings, which Republicans have spent years scrutinizing to accuse his father — without evidence — of corruption in connection with his son’s work overseas.
The potential political ramifications of the trial just weeks before the presidential election may have faded somewhat since President Biden’s July decision to drop out of the 2024 race. But the president is deeply concerned with the well-being of his son, so a trial would likely weigh heavily on him in the final months of his five-decade political career.
Hunter Biden walked into the courtroom holding hands with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and flanked by Secret Service agents. Initially, he pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his 2016 through 2019 taxes and his attorneys have indicated they will argue he didn’t act “willfully,” or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses last year in a deal with the Justice Department that would allow him to avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble. But the agreement imploded after a judge questioned unusual aspects of it, and he was subsequently indicted in the two cases.
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