NEW YORK, Oct 4 (NNN-XINHUA) – Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. President Joe Biden, pleaded not guilty yesterday, in the state of Delaware, to three felony gun charges, after a deal that included a diversion in connection with a firearms charge and a guilty plea to two misdemeanor tax charges collapsed in court, over the summer.
Appearing in Wilmington, before a federal magistrate Christopher Burke, Biden, 53, entered not guilty pleas on the three charges, brought against him last month by the Justice Department: falsifying a federal firearms application, lying to a federally licensed gun dealer and possessing an illegally obtained gun for 11 days from Oct 12 to Oct 23, 2018.
“The charges are related to his statement on a federal form he filled out to purchase a Glock pistol, five years ago that he was not a drug user,” reported The New York Times. “Biden has acknowledged long-running addictions to crack cocaine and alcohol.”
“If convicted on all three charges, Hunter Biden faces a maximum of 25 years in prison and up to 750,000 U.S. dollars in fines,” reported CBS News. “The next court date has not yet been assigned, but there is a pretrial motion deadline of Nov 3.”
In late July, Biden arrived at the same courthouse with high hopes of putting his legal problems behind him, after reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that would have ended a five-year investigation into both the weapons charges and separate allegations that he had failed to pay his income taxes on time.
Meanwhile, “President Joe Biden’s public schedule was clear yesterday, as his son, Hunter, was in a Delaware courtroom pleading not guilty to federal gun charges,” reported CNN. “Behind closed doors, the president was expected to place phone calls to foreign leaders, … according to people familiar with the matter.”– NNN-XINHUA