In the latest development in the criminal case against US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden over his illegal purchase of firearms in 2018, the former wife and former girlfriend of Hunter have testified against him highlighting his drug use.
Hunter Biden faces three felony charges related to a gun purchase in October 2018. He is accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, falsely claiming on the application that he was not a drug user, and illegally possessing the gun for 11 days.
This is the first trial of a US president’s child.
‘He would prepare crack’
Hunter’s former girlfriend, Zoe Kestan, testified before the jurors that in the months leading up to his 2018 gun purchase, he would either prepare crack at the upscale Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles or spend days getting high in hotel rooms.
Kestan described meetings with a “scary” drug dealer and Hunter looking for instructions online to cook powder cocaine into crack. “He would want to smoke as soon as he woke up,” she added.
The prosecutors are trying to prove that Hunter Hunter knowingly lied about his drug use on the screening paperwork when he purchased a revolver in October 2018.
Besides Kestan, Hunter’s former wife, Kathleen Buhle, also testified for about 20 minutes. She described that she first came to know that her husband was doing drugs when she found a crack pipe in an ashtray on their porch in July, 2015. When she confronted him, he acknowledged smoking crack, she added.
Prosecutors also stated that they plan to call Hallie Biden, the widow of his late brother Beau Biden, to testify.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to the three felony charges against him. Joe Biden has publicly acknowledged his past drug use, including in his memoir. At a 2023 hearing, he informed the judge that he has been sober since 2019.
(With agency inputs)
