Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was indicted Thursday in Los Angeles on several federal tax charges, marking the start of a second criminal case that will proceed during his father’s reelection campaign.
Biden, who resides in Malibu, was accused of failing to timely pay his taxes from 2016 to 2019, one count of tax evasion, and filing false and fraudulent tax returns in 2018, according to the 56-page indictment.
The charges in the nine-count indictment span a period when Biden was addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine, which he documented in graphic detail in a memoir that dwells on the death of his brother, Beau, and the grief that consumed him and his family.
Read more: Hunter Biden pleads not guilty to 3 federal gun charges filed after his plea deal collapsed
The charges were unsealed on the eve of President Biden’s arrival in Southern California for his first in-person fundraising jaunt here since the entertainment-industry strikes put a pause on Hollywood campaign events.
Earlier this year, Hunter Biden was charged in Delaware with lying about his drug use in 2018 when he was purchasing a firearm; he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time, according to the indictment. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are not typically filed as a standalone case.
The Delaware firearms case was filed against Biden after a plea deal imploded that would have headed off a criminal trial. In the wake of the plea deal’s collapse, Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as special counsel probing the financial and business dealings of the president’s son.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.