Hunter Biden has been quietly embroiled in years of court battles and multimillion-dollar debts while his alleged crimes are in the spotlight, according to a report.
While the First Son will face a criminal trial next week for serious weapons offenses, Hunter, 54, has also received several convictions in recent years that went unnoticed, he reports. axios.
This included a January 2021 ruling, shortly after his father’s presidential inauguration, that found he owed his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle more than $1.7 million in alimony, legal fees and interest following his 2017 divorce.
The revelations come as Buhle is expected to be a key witness in Hunter’s upcoming trial, where he is accused of lying on federal background checks about his crack addiction when he purchased a gun in 2018.
Hunter Biden (pictured arriving at a court appearance on May 24, 2024) has been quietly embroiled in years of court battles and multimillion-dollar debts.
Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle (pictured together in 2016), claims the first son owes her at least $1.7 million in unpaid debts.
Buhle’s testimony is expected to include intimate details of his finances and his drug use, which was once described by his ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, who will also testify, as smoking crack “every 20 minutes except when he was sleeping.”
And according to previously reported divorce reports, Buhle made no secret of his disdain for Hunter’s alleged wild lifestyle.
She said her ex-husband spent “extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women he has sexual relations with), leaving the family without funds to pay legitimate bills.”
Hunter’s trial next week is likely to include embarrassing details from the presidential family, and Buhle is likely to testify about his marriage and Hunter’s admitted drug addiction.
However, although the gun trial begins next week, the newly revealed legal battle, first shared by Axios, appears to belong more to his second trial in Los Angeles in September, centered on more than $1.4 million in federal taxes allegedly unpaid from 2016 to 2019.
During their bitter divorce, Buhle claimed Hunter spent extravagantly on “drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women he had sexual relations with, leaving the family without funds to pay legitimate bills.”
The former couple has been in and out of court for years, and Buhle successfully sued Hunter in civil court in June 2019, alleging that he breached their divorce agreement.
In their divorce settlement, Hunter was ordered to pay Buhle $37,000 a month in alimony payments, plus 50 percent of any income over $875,000 a year.
According to newly released records, Hunter failed to pay additional spousal support he owed in 2017 and 2018, despite earning $2.4 million and $2.1 million respectively in those years.
He also stopped paying Buhle’s monthly alimony after she sued him in June 2019, further contributing to her unpaid debts.
Hunter’s legal team claimed he stopped paying when he ran out of funds due to his drug addiction, however the court found he owed Buhle at least $1.1 million plus 6 percent interest for the unpaid years. from 2017 and 2018.
Following his divorce, Hunter moved on with his late brother Beau’s ex-wife, before marrying his current wife, filmmaker Melissa Cohen Biden (pictured together in May 2024).
Their legal battle became more hostile during Hunter’s father’s 2020 presidential campaign, when Buhle’s attorneys filed a contempt suit against Hunter over a back payment of $259,000.
This led Hunter’s lawyers to claim that Buhle was using the presidential race to blackmail Hunter into making payments.
In April 2023, Buhle claimed that Biden only paid him $35,815 in 2022, at a time when a court-appointed special judge was called to try the case.
In that filing, it was claimed that Hunter owed his ex-wife a staggering $2.9 million.
