Second criminal case filed against Biden's son

Federal prosecutors have filed tax charges against Hunter Biden, a second criminal case against the US president's son.

The indictment alleges he "engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4m in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019", reports BBC.

The nine charges include failure to file and pay taxes, false tax return and evasion of assessment.

Hunter Biden was indicted in September on federal firearm charges in Delaware.

President Joe Biden's 53-year-old son has already pleaded not guilty in the gun case.

The White House did not comment on the new charges on Thursday night.

US Department of Justice Special Counsel David Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden's alleged criminal conduct since 2019.

Federal prosecutors allege Hunter Biden "spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills".

Prosecutors allege that Hunter Biden instead spent his money on "drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes".

The indictment says that the president's son "individually received more than $7 million in total gross income" between 2016 and mid-October 2020, but "willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes".

A chart inside the indictment outlines what Hunter Biden spent his money on.

Between 2016-19, he paid over $188,000 on "adult entertainment" and over $683,000 on "payments - various women", according to the charge sheet.

Hunter Biden "continued to earn handsomely and to spend wildly in 2018", prosecutors allege.

As his income increased, so did his expenditures, says the indictment.

In 2018, the defendant spent more than $1.8m, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash withdrawals, about $383,000 in payments to women and $151,000 on clothing.

He stayed at various high-end hotels and allegedly spent $10,000 "to purchase a membership in a sex club".

Prosecutors note throughout the indictment that he "had sufficient funds available… to pay some or all of his outstanding taxes when they were due", but he chose not to do so.

Hunter Biden allegedly often wrote off personal expenses as business expenses, like a rental of a Lamborghini that he drove when he first moved to California in April 2018 until his Porsche arrived from the east coast.

On one occasion, the defendant did not note a $1,500 Venmo payment in August 2018 as a personal expense.

Though the payment was described as "artwork", prosecutors say it was to an exotic dancer at a strip club, who "had not sold him any artwork", says the court papers.

The defendant also used his business line of credit to pay for his daughter's rent in New York City, about $19,535, and to make payments to an online pornography website - about $27,316.

The defendant also claimed extensive business travel in 2018 when he had none, says the indictment. 

It also refers to someone who brought a paternity suit against the defendant after being involved in a romantic relationship with him.

It alleges Hunter Biden placed this individual - named as Person 1 - on the payroll shortly after she moved to Arkansas while pregnant with his child, even though she did not perform any work.

Person 1 received $22,500 in wages, which Hunter Biden falsely claimed as a business deduction, according to prosecutors.

While Person 1 is not named in the indictment, she is believed to be Lunden Roberts, a stripper who is the mother of Hunter's long-unacknowledged daughter.

The charge sheet also notes that Hunter Biden had joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings Limited, a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate, which agreed to pay him an annual salary of about $1m.

/MHK/