WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) 鈥� Hunter Biden's federal gun case will go to trial next month, a judge said Tuesday, denying a bid by lawyers for to delay the prosecution.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Biden's request to push the trial in Delaware until September, which the defense said was necessary to line up witnesses and go through evidence handed over by prosecutors. The judge said she believes "everyone can get done what needs to get done鈥� by the trial's start date of June 3.
President Joe Biden鈥檚 son is accused of lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days. He has pleaded not guilty and acknowledged struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine during that period in 2018, but his lawyers have said he didn鈥檛 break the law.
He's separately charged in a tax case in California that's tentatively scheduled to go to trial in late June.
Special Counsel David Weiss' team plans to show jurors in the gun case portions of his 2021 memoir, 鈥淏eautiful Things,鈥� in which he detailed his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse following , Beau, who succumbed to brain cancer at age 46, according to court papers filed Tuesday. Hunter Biden has said he has been sober since 2019.
Hunter Biden lawyer Abbe Lowell told the judge that many experts the defense has approached have been reluctant to testify in the case, citing the media attention. Prosecutor Derek Hines pushed back on the suggestion that the media attention was to blame.
鈥淚t鈥檚 written in his memoir, he was in active addiction,鈥� Hines said. 鈥� I don鈥檛 know what expert they can find who will say he wasn鈥檛. I think that鈥檚 the issue they鈥檙e having.鈥�
Lowell said he wasn鈥檛 trying to find an expert to refute Biden鈥檚 addiction struggles but to discuss the ability for someone to recognize in the moment they are an addict.
The defense has argued that prosecutors bowed to pressure by Republicans, who claimed the Democratic president鈥檚 son was initially given a sweetheart deal, and that he was indicted because of political pressure.
But Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, last month that the prosecution is politically motivated along with other efforts to dismiss the case. A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week to trial, though Hunter Biden's lawyer said Tuesday that they would continue to press his appeal.
He was supposed to plead guilty last year to misdemeanor tax charges and would have avoided prosecution on the gun charges had he stayed out of trouble for two years. It was the culmination of a yearslong investigation by federal prosecutors into the business dealings of the president鈥檚 son, and the agreement would have dispensed with criminal proceedings and spared the Bidens weeks of headlines as the 2024 election loomed.
But after the judge who was supposed to sign off on the agreement instead raised a series of questions about it.
Hunter Biden was indicted on three gun firearms charges in Delaware and was charged separately in California, where he lives, with .
He's charged in the Delaware case with two counts of making false statements, first for checking a box falsely saying he was not addicted to drugs and second for giving it to the shop for its federally required records. A third count alleges he possessed the gun for about 11 days despite knowing he was a drug user.
In California, he's charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors over at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed between 2016 and 2019. Prosecutors have accused him of spending millions of dollars on an 鈥渆xtravagant lifestyle鈥� instead of paying his taxes. The back taxes have since been paid.
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Richer reported from Washington.
Claudia Lauer And Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press
