Hunter Biden’s defense took a beating in court on Wednesday, even before his tax crimes trial began.
The First Son’s new attorney, Los Angeles celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos, argued at a pretrial hearing that the jury should be spared the sordid details of the prostitutes, drugs, porn sites, Lamborghini rentals and hotel rooms for drug-fueled binges that Hunter deducted as business expenses.
Geragos also sought to bring in psychological experts to convince jurors that Hunter’s drug addiction led to his debauched behavior and alleged tax evasion, and that the childhood trauma of his mother and sister dying in a car crash in 1972 and his brother’s death from brain cancer in 2015 were to blame.
But Judge Mark Scarsi would have none of it and ruled that Hunter’s expert, Joshua Lee, would not be allowed to testify at the trial, which begins next month in federal court in Los Angeles.
Special prosecutor David Weiss charged Hunter with three felonies and six misdemeanors in December, accusing the First Son of willfully evading taxes, falsifying his returns and failing to pay $1.4 million on time, and instead spending the money on a “lavish lifestyle” over a three-year period between 2016 and 2019.
Hunter Biden’s defense team argued desperately at a pretrial hearing Wednesday to prevent the jury from hearing the sordid details of the prostitutes, drugs, porn sites and other drug-fueled binges that Hunter deducted as business expenses.
Hundreds of emails, text messages and photographs found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop will likely be used as evidence in the First Son’s criminal trials.
Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise, fresh off a defeat of Hunter’s legal team at his Delaware gun charges trial, hinted at Wednesday’s hearing at some of the damning evidence jurors will hear at the upcoming tax charges trial, which is set to begin Sept. 9 in federal court in Los Angeles.
This included Hunter’s business deductions on his tax return for “StreamRay,” which Wise described as a site “to allow consenting adults to meet, and is sexual in nature.”
“You can spend $30,000 on a pornographic website if you want, that’s not illegal, but you can’t claim that it’s a business expense,” the prosecutor told the judge.
‘He describes his life as a bacchanal. Parties in these hotels with a cast of strippers.
“He decided to pay those strippers,” Wise added. “He decided to take it as a business deduction.”
Wise even read an excerpt from the transcript of testimony from one of the women the government might put on the stand:
‘I received a Venmo payment for $1,500.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘In a strip club.’
‘The (payment description) is for a piece of art, did he sell you the piece of art?’
‘No.’
“We’re not going to get into the gory details,” he said, but added: “The jury needs those facts to determine whether it was a mistake or whether it was intentional.”
Geragos was left in a difficult situation.
Hunter has now hired prominent Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos ahead of his upcoming trial next month.
The criminal defense attorney had already charged Chris Brown when he was accused of assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna, as well as President Clinton’s brother Roger and Clinton’s former business partner Susan McDougal.
During Wednesday’s pretrial hearing, the judge also ruled that they could not discuss the possibility that Hunter received payment for any acts his father Joe Biden performed as vice president, or whether he funneled any money to Joe Biden.
He offered to admit that some of Hunter’s business deductions were in fact personal expenses, to try to prevent Wise and Hines from telling the jury what those expenses consisted of: “bacchanals” in luxury hotel rooms, payments to prostitutes and subscriptions to pornography.
But Hunter’s attorney could not admit that Hunter had deliberately made those deductions to illegally reduce his tax bill, because that would admit to some of the government’s charges against his client.
Instead, Geragos insisted that Hunter didn’t know which payments were which and accidentally claimed them on his taxes.
But Wise fired back, detailing how Hunter deliberately selected those expenses and told his accountants to deduct them.
“They gave those schedules to Mr. Biden and said, ‘Here’s a yellow marker. We don’t know which of these are personal expenses and which are business expenses. We need you to highlight them,'” the prosecutor said.
“He went through these schedules very deliberately and highlighted things that were personal.”
Wise also revealed that Hunter allegedly broke the law by constructing a scheme to claim health insurance by putting assistants on his payroll who did not actually work for him.
In another blow to the defense, Scarsi ruled that the jury will not be told that Hunter’s multimillion-dollar tax bill, which he is accused of failing to pay, was later paid by his wealthy Hollywood lawyer, Kevin Morris.
Wise noted that Morris only decided to pay Hunter’s tax bill after discovering that the First Son was facing a criminal investigation, and that before paying the IRS, Morris funded Hunter’s lavish life, including “a house in Malibu, a Porsche, a crisis communications team and security detail.”
Judge Scarsi warned that if the lawyers spoke in front of the jury about topics he had banned, they could face a “six-figure” fine.
Scarsi also placed some limits on the pursuit.
In another blow to the defense, Judge Scarsi ruled that the jury will not be told that Hunter’s multimillion-dollar tax bill, which he is accused of failing to pay, was later paid by his wealthy Hollywood lawyer, Kevin Morris.
Hunter’s legal troubles come after compromising photos, videos, texts and emails of the president’s son were posted online from his abandoned laptop.
A portrait of Hunter Biden with his attorney Abbe Lowell in federal court in January. The president’s son pleaded not guilty to federal tax charges filed after a plea deal collapsed last year.
He ruled that they could not discuss the possibility that Hunter had received payments from foreign governments, that he had received payments for any acts his father Joe Biden performed as vice president and whether he funneled any money to Joe.
“He had every intention of cleaning up his life, filing his returns, paying his taxes,” Geragos told the judge, arguing that it was Hunter’s crack addiction that kept him from getting his life back on track until a few years ago.
The defense attorney will argue that Hunter had “diminished capacity” due to his continued drug use throughout 2019.
But Wise told the judge: “No matter how many drugs you take, don’t suddenly forget that when you make $11 million, you have to pay taxes,” referring to the massive income Hunter received from his overseas businesses and other ventures between 2016 and 2019.
Geragos got personal, accusing the Justice Department of being worse than the mob for bringing Hunter’s family into the case, saying that “even the mob spares women and children,” adding that the Justice Department was attempting a “salacious prosecution.”
Wise responded that it was Hunter’s own team that put his daughter Naomi on the stand in Delaware, a disastrous decision that could have cost them the case.
“Mr. Geragos made that offensive comment about the mob not attacking wives and daughters,” Wise said. “We didn’t.”
“At the gun trial, he called one of his daughters. It was horrible.”
But at the upcoming trial, witnesses will include Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen; his brother’s widow who became Hunter’s mistress, Hallie Biden; and Lunden Roberts, whom he hired as an assistant, impregnated and then dropped from his company’s health insurance.