Federal prosecutors in California filed a new criminal case against Hunter Biden on Thursday, indicting him on nine charges, including three felony counts, according to court documents.
The 56-page indictment—the second filed against President Joe Biden’s son this year—alleges that Biden evaded tax assessments, filed false or fraudulent tax forms, and failed to file and pay taxes.
The indictment claims Biden failed to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed taxes from 2016 through 2019, and that he evaded tax assessment in 2018 when he filed false returns.
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At the same time, special counsel David Weiss said in a statement, Biden spent “millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle.”
Between 2016 and 2020, according to the indictment, the president’s son allegedly splurged on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature.”
“In short,” the indictment states, “everything but his taxes.”
The period is one in which Biden has previously acknowledged struggling heavily with addiction. His substance issues are frequently referenced in Thursday’s indictment, which draws heavily on Beautiful Things, Biden’s 2021 memoir.
At one point, citing the memoir, the indictment notes that Biden’s 2018 was “dominated by crack cocaine use ‘twenty-four hours a day, smoking every fifteen minutes, seven days a week.’” It adds that Biden failed to mention that to the tax accountants preparing his returns, “which might have prompted greater scrutiny of his claims of hundreds of thousands of dollars in business expenses.”
At the end of the year, Biden texted his ex-wife that he had “no money.”
“I’m waiting on a few things,” he wrote, according to the indictment. “When I can pay the taxes, I will pay the taxes. I’m [sic] the meantime I’m struggling to pay your alimony and all girls expenses.”
If convicted, Biden could face up to 17 years in prison, according to the Associated Press. Weiss said that the special counsel’s probe remained open.
The new criminal case against Biden was first reported by CNN on Thursday night.
Biden’s tax affairs have been at the heart of a long-running investigation by Weiss, who has been using a federal grand jury to gather evidence in recent weeks.
The new charges come just over two months after Biden pleaded not guilty to three gun charges brought against him in an indictment by the Justice Department, all related to his possession of a firearm as an alleged drug user in 2018.
An attorney for Biden said in October he intended to file a motion seeking to have the charges dismissed on procedural and constitutional grounds.
A plea deal that would have seen him avoid the gun charges entirely—and plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges—fell apart earlier this summer after a judge questioned the agreement.
Instead, Biden pleaded not guilty to two other tax crimes in July. Weiss, who first began investigating him five years ago as President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for Delaware, was appointed as special counsel in the investigation the next month.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday’s indictment. It declined to comment to CNN and the AP, referring questions to the Justice Department and Biden’s attorneys.
