A federal judge on Friday awarded Hunter Biden nearly $2 million in punitive damages in a case surrounding allegations that he sought an $800 million bribe from Iran.
The order from U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson, a Reagan appointee, means Biden is set to receive $1.7 million after he filed a defamation dispute against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne. The development marks a key legal win for former President Joe Biden’s son, who has recently made a concerted effort to rebuild his image after being scrutinized for years over concerns he illegally capitalized on his family name in corrupt international business deals, particularly in Ukraine and China.
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Wilson rebuked Byrne, a supporter of President Donald Trump, for claiming Biden sought the bribe from Iran in 2021 in exchange for persuading his father to release billions in frozen Iranian assets in South Korea, among other things. The judge said that the evidence “is clear and convincing that defendant has engaged in intentional misrepresentation with conscious disregard towards plaintiff’s rights.”
“Defendant’s defamation went far beyond mere negligence,” Wilson wrote in the order. “In fact, defendant has admitted that after the offending article was published, defendant repeatedly reposted the article across social media platforms and encouraged his followers on those platforms to promote it further.”
The judge said Byrne had failed to show up in court during proceedings to argue his case and fired his lead trial attorney, delaying the proceedings “at the expense” of Biden. Wilson found Byrne to be in default for “repeated, intentional disobedience of court orders and unceasing efforts to delay proceedings”.
Biden’s court win on Friday comes as he has embarked on an extensive image-rehabilitation campaign that has gone viral on social media.
The former president’s son has sought to reclaim the messaging battle after data from his infamous laptop was published, detailing explicit videos of him engaging in sex acts, using illicit drugs, and engaging with prostitutes. Aside from allegations of corrupt business dealings, his father’s decision to pardon him on tax and gun charges when he was president has also raised eyebrows.
Biden’s resurgence began in late May, when he reintroduced himself on X and began doing high-profile interviews and podcasts.
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Biden most recently announced he will be releasing chapters about the past seven years of his life on Substack. His reentry into public life has primarily revolved around describing his recovery from drug addiction and the lifestyle that came with opioid abuse, and fending off critics whom he argues tried to “steal my humanity.”
“Their portrait was of a monster,” he wrote in a recent post to X. “My portrait is of a man being reassembled piece by piece, bit by bit, pixel by pixel through the hard work of recovery. A portrait of someone worth saving. Someone worth forgiveness. For all of me. Past. Present. Future. Gratitude for all of it. The images they meant as weapons are no longer weapons to me. The man in them is no longer theirs to describe. He is mine, and I love him. We do recover.”
