Hunter Biden prosecutor cut disputed path

BALTIMORE — Before being assigned to investigate President Joe Biden’s son, Leo Wise built a reputation in Baltimore as a tough and hard-charging federal prosecutor, taking on powerful, and seemingly untouchable, figures — whether a gang of corrupt cops, a police commissioner, a top local prosecutor and even a mayor.

Wise’s backers call him talented and savvy, with a knack for navigating complex, headline-generating cases. To detractors, he’s stubborn and uncompromising as well as self-promotional. His approach sets the stage for a contentious fight in the high-stakes prosecution of Hunter Biden.

“He holds everything very close to the vest, and he takes every possible advantage that he can take,” said Gerard Martin, a Baltimore criminal defense lawyer.

Wise’s track record in Baltimore is newly relevant given his position as a lead lawyer in what is already a politically fraught prosecution. The case, overseen by special counsel David Weiss, is poised to unfold in the heat of the president’s 2024 re-election campaign.

The first public glimpse of Wise in the Hunter Biden case came during a fractious July plea hearing on gun and tax charges when the agreement was scuttled amid a tense dispute over the deal’s terms. An indictment under federal firearms statutes followed.

Hunter Biden is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Wise also netted high-profile convictions of members of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force who’d terrorized the city.

The prosecution that caused Wise the most trouble went to trial in 2021.

The case concerned two prominent attorneys: Kenneth Ravenell and Joshua Treem. A year after Ravenell was indicted in a money laundering conspiracy case, Wise and colleagues charged Treem, who’d represented Ravenell earlier in the investigation, with obstructing the probe and creating false documents.

Treem was acquitted outright. Ravenell was convicted of a single count.

Andy Levy, a former law partner of Treem’s, said Wise “was pretty well-respected, not just for his legal ability, but I think people thought that he was a reasonable guy that could be trusted.” But, he added, the Treem prosecution was “such a colossal error of judgment” that it hurt his reputation in the legal community.