Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was convicted on Tuesday of three felony charges related to his 2018 purchase of a handgun.
At 54, Biden is the first child of a sitting U.S. president to be convicted in a criminal trial. President Biden has stated he will not pardon his son.
The unanimous verdict was delivered by a jury of six men and six women after three hours of deliberation.
Although Biden faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years, he is more likely to receive a sentence of two years or less, or possibly avoid prison time altogether, as he is a first-time offender and the crimes involved a single gun that was never used violently. Judge Maryellen Noreika, who presided over the trial, will determine the sentence, which she expects to issue in about four months.
Additionally, Biden faces federal criminal charges for allegedly failing to pay over $1.4 million in taxes on time. That trial is set to begin in September in Los Angeles. Special counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating the president’s son for years, brought both the gun and tax cases.
The gun-related charges arose from Biden's purchase of a Colt revolver at a Wilmington gun shop in October 2018. Prosecutors claimed that Biden, then struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine, falsely stated on the purchase paperwork that he was not using illegal drugs. It is illegal for drug users to possess firearms or to lie on gun-purchasing forms.
Prosecutors stated that Biden possessed the gun for 11 days before his brother's widow, Hallie Biden, found it and disposed of it in a trash can outside a high-end grocery store. A man scavenging for recyclables found the gun and later turned it over to the police.
Biden is expected to appeal the conviction. His lawyers have argued that the federal law prohibiting drug users from possessing guns is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. Although Judge Noreika, a Trump appointee, rejected this argument, Biden’s legal team plans to raise it again on appeal.
