Hunter Biden plans to change his plea to guilty in his federal tax case, his attorney announced in court on Thursday.
Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, revealed in federal court that Hunter Biden intends to plead guilty, according to Fox News. Initially, Biden had pleaded not guilty to three felony charges and six misdemeanor counts brought by special counsel David Weiss.
The trial began with jury selection in Los Angeles on Thursday. Federal prosecutor Leo Wise responded to the news of Biden’s intention to change his plea, stating, “This is the first we are hearing about this.”
If convicted, Hunter Biden could face up to 17 years in prison and fines totaling up to $750,000.
The indictment, filed by Weiss, alleges that Biden “engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020.”
Weiss further detailed that, to support this scheme, Hunter Biden “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC, by withdrawing millions” from the company “outside of the payroll and tax withholding process that it was designed to perform.”
The indictment also claims that Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills” and “stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015” in 2018. Additionally, it alleges that Biden “willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes,” and “willfully failed to file his 2017 and 2018 tax returns on time.”