Defense seeks to have Hunter Biden’s Calif. tax case tossed out
LOS ANGELES — Attorneys for Hunter Biden were expected in court Wednesday in Los Angeles, where he is accused in what prosecutors call a four-year scheme to avoid paying $1.4 million in taxes while living an extravagant lifestyle.
President Joe Biden’s son has pleaded not guilty to the nine felony and misdemeanor tax offenses. He’s asking the judge to toss out the case, arguing that the prosecution was politically motivated, was tainted by leaks from IRS agents who claimed publicly that the case was mishandled and includes some allegations from before he moved to California.
He has also been charged in Delaware with lying on a federal form to buy a gun in 2018 by saying he wasn’t using or addicted to illegal drugs, even though he has acknowledged being addicted to crack cocaine at the time. He has pleaded not guilty in that case, which also accuses him of possessing the gun illegally.
Both cases are overseen by special counsel David Weiss and have tentative trials scheduled for June, although defense attorneys are also trying to get the gun charges tossed out.
The two sets of charges come from a yearslong federal investigation that had been expected to wrap up over the summer with a plea deal in which Biden would have gotten two years of probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor tax charges. Biden, who has since repaid the back taxes with a loan, also would have avoided prosecution on the gun charge if he stayed out of trouble.
Defense attorneys say immunity provisions in the deal were signed by a prosecutor and are still in effect; prosecutors disagree.
Biden’s criminal proceedings are happening in parallel to efforts by congressional Republicans to link his business dealings to his father.
If convicted of the tax charges, Biden, 53, could receive a maximum of 17 years in prison.
Moscow toll rises: The death toll from last week’s Moscow concert hall attack rose to 143, Russian authorities said Wednesday. Around 80 people wounded in the siege remain hospitalized.
The massacre Friday night in Crocus City Hall, a sprawling shopping and entertainment venue on the northwestern outskirts of Moscow, was the deadliest extremist attack on Russian soil in nearly two decades. At least four men toting automatic rifles shot at thousands of concertgoers and set the venue on fire.
An affiliate of Islamic State claimed responsibility for the violence, while U.S. intelligence said it had information confirming that the group was responsible. French President Emmanuel Macron said France also has intelligence pointing to “an IS entity” as responsible for the attack.
The updated fatalities from Russia’s Emergencies Ministry didn’t state the number of wounded, but Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said earlier Wednesday that 80 people were in hospitals and 205 had sought medical treatment from the attack.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said it had arrested 11 people the day after the attack, including four suspected gunmen. The four men, identified as Tajik nationals, appeared in a Moscow court Sunday on terrorism charges and showed signs of severe beatings. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing.
Book on Biden cat:
Jill Biden has written a children’s book about her White House cat, Willow, that will be published in June.
The first lady’s publisher announced Wednesday that “Willow the White House Cat” tells the story of how the tabby arrived at her new home from a farm in Pennsylvania.
The cat jumped on stage when Biden was speaking at the farm during the 2020 presidential campaign. Biden says the book offers a “cat’s-eye view” of what happens at America’s most famous address. Willow, 4, is the only Biden pet still living at the White House.
It’s Biden’s third children’s book. She published her memoir in 2019.
Georgia hate-crimes case:
Attorneys for three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia subdivision asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to throw out their hate-crime convictions, arguing that prosecutors relied on their history of racist comments without proving that they targeted Arbery because he was Black.
“At the end of the day, this issue isn’t about the racism of these defendants,” A.J. Balbo, representing Greg Mcmichael, told a threejudge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. “It’s about whether or not the government met its burden.”
Their arguments also strayed beyond the core issue of whether a racist intent to harm motivated the Feb. 23, 2020, pursuit that ended with Arbery shot dead in the street. Defense attorneys raised legal technicalities, including their contention that prosecutors failed to prove that Arbery was killed on a public road.
Federal prosecutors countered that the trial jury in 2022 heard sufficient evidence to find the trio guilty of hate crimes as well as attempted kidnapping. Racist views evidenced by the men’s text messages and social media posts, they said, informed their mistaken assumption that Arbery was a fleeing criminal.
All three men were convicted of murder in a Georgia state court in late 2021, followed months later by the federal hate-crimes trial. Each got 20 years for attempted kidnapping, to overlap with their hatecrime sentences.
If the U.S. appeals court overturns any of their federal convictions, Greg and Travis Mcmichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan would remain in prison. All three are serving life sentences in state prisons for murder and have motions pending for new state trials.
Mega Millions jackpot:
Someone in New Jersey who bought a single ticket overcame the odds and won the $1.13 billion Mega Millions jackpot Tuesday night, breaking a winless streak that dated to December.
State lottery officials said the ticket — 7-11-22-29-38 and the gold Mega Ball 4 — was sold on the Jersey Shore. Odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million.
The prize is the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history. A cash payout instead of the annuity would net $537.5 million.
Thai same-sex marriage:
Lawmakers in Thailand’s lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly approved a marriage-equality bill Wednesday that would make the country the first in Southeast Asia to legalize equal rights for marriage partners of any gender.
Four hundred of the 415 members of the House of Representatives in attendance voted for the bill. It would open up access to full legal, financial and medical rights for LGBTQ+ couples.
The bill goes to the Senate, which rarely rejects any legislation that passes the lower house, and then to the king for royal endorsement. Taiwan and Nepal have similar laws.