President Joe Biden‘s son Hunter Biden is offering to withdraw his guilty plea in order to avoid a Los Angeles-based tax trial, according to his attorney Abbe Lowell.
Hunter Biden will reportedly offer to the Los Angeles judge in his tax case what’s known as an Alford plea, meaning he will agree to accept whatever sentence comes down while maintaining his innocence. The move is not technically the same as a guilty plea, but it comes as the first son faces up to 17 years in prison if found guilty of committing tax violations.
If accepted by the trial judge and prosecutors, the Alford plea would spare the younger Biden from spending roughly the next two weeks in trial, where prosecutors had planned to call around two dozen witnesses and dive into unflattering details about Hunter Biden’s lavish spending habits and overseas businesses.
It is unclear whether prosecutors will accept the unusual offer, however.
The offered plea change was made shortly before jury selection was slated to begin Thursday in what would have been the second criminal trial against the president’s son this year. The court went into recess shortly after the announcement, according to NBC News.
Court is in recess until 11 a.m. PT for parties to discuss the shift in the younger Biden’s plans.
Hunter Biden, 54, was indicted in December on three felony and six misdemeanor counts, alleging he did not pay his taxes during a period in his life when he was under the influence of illicit drugs.
Prosecutors allege the younger Biden willfully did not pay taxes by subverting his company’s payroll system, and that he did not pay his taxes on time despite having the money to do so. They also said he included false information on his 2018 tax returns.
Last June, Hunter Biden was set to plead guilty to two misdemeanor offenses, acknowledging his failure to pay taxes on income received in 2017 and 2018 through a plea deal offered by then-Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. The deal also offered Hunter Biden a way to enter a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid criminal charges related to his 2018 firearm purchase.
The sudden shift on Thursday mirrors the chaos that unfolded in Delaware last summer after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, declined to allow the plea deal to move forward after she found there was not a “meeting of the minds” between Weiss and attorneys for the president’s son over the terms of the deal.
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Last fall, Weiss unsealed an indictment in Delaware charging the president’s son for lying on a federal form when he purchased a gun in 2018. He later filed an indictment on the tax charges in Los Angeles.
Against that backdrop, President Joe Biden has publicly said he would not pardon his son for any of his alleged crimes as he prepares to leave the presidency in January.
