A jury in Delaware on Tuesday found Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, guilty on three felony gun charges after a weeklong trial that focused on his history of drug addiction.
Hunter Biden was charged in federal court in Wilmington with three felony counts tied to possession of a gun while using narcotics, and had pleaded not guilty. The jury started its deliberations on Monday afternoon, and deliberated for about three hours before returning the historic verdict.
Hunter Biden looked straight ahead at the jury as it delivered the verdict, and slightly nodded as it was read.
The trial was the first involving the offspring of a sitting president, and came as Joe Biden is facing a brutal re-election fight against Donald Trump in November. First lady Jill Biden was not in the courtroom as the verdict was read, and arrived at the courthouse minutes later. She immediately went into a holding room where Hunter Biden went after the verdict.
Two of the counts carry maximum prison sentences of 10 years, while the third has a maximum of five years. Under federal sentencing guideline recommendations, he could be sentenced to over a year in prison, but the judge could sentence him to more or less time. Each count also carries a maximum fine of $250,000.
No sentencing date has been set.
READ ALSO: Court finds Trump guilty of record falsification
On the day the trial began on June 3, the president said he loved his son and was proud of him. “Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us,” the president said in a statement.
Biden has the power to pardon his son, but told ABC News in an interview on June 6 that he would not do so.
Jill Biden attended the trial — which featured explicit testimony from three of Hunter Biden’s former romantic partners about his chronic drug use — on multiple days.
Two of the counts accused Biden of having completed a form falsely indicating he was not using illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018. The third count alleged he possessed a firearm while using a narcotic.
Biden’s defense centered on the language used in the question on the federally mandated gun shop form, which asked, “are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to” a narcotic drug. Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, noted other questions on the sheet began with “have you ever been,” but not that one. He suggested his client had been using alcohol during that time period, but not crack cocaine, and that it would have been easy to tell if he was on drugs at the time.
“There may be high-functioning alcoholics, but there’s no such thing as a high-functioning crack addict,” Lowell said in his opening statement.
Lowell acknowledged his client used crack in the months before and after the sale, but suggested he wasn’t using it at the time of the sale and did not at that point consider himself an addict, so he did not “knowingly” violate the law.
Prosecutors pushed back on that claim by using passages from Biden’s book, where he detailed his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Lowell told jurors in closing arguments that writing after the fact about being an addict in his book, which was published in 2021, doesn’t mean Biden knew he was an addict when he bought the gun.
