Hunter Biden mourned the death of his brother. Hallie Biden was a recent widow. The two gradually began dating in late 2015. Hallie Biden verified that she had never seen crack cocaine before she started dating Hunter Biden. Eventually, she also started using drugs.
Their relationship was sometimes good, sometimes “not so good” – and always complicated, she says. He would disappear for weeks without contact. She feared he would be with other women and commit suicide. Both men went to drug meetings and tried to help each other get sober. In August 2018, Hallie Biden said she had successfully curbed her addiction — at least a year before Hunter Biden said so.
Prosecutors offered Hallie Biden immunity from drug charges in exchange for her candid testimony at trial.
“It was a terrible experience that I had,” she told the juniors. “I’m embarrassed and ashamed and I regret that part of my life.”
Biden Hunter faces three criminal charges related to the gun he purchased in October 2018. While filling out the required paperwork, he allegedly lied about not being addicted to or using illegal drugs. He then allegedly claimed his statement was true and illegally possessed the gun for 11 days as a drug user.
The most serious charge he faces carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, although Biden would likely face a lesser sentence if convicted because he has no prior record criminals.
President Biden said in an ABC News interview Thursday that he would not pardon his son if the jury found him guilty.
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case Friday, with the trial likely stretching into a second week. The defense says it may present two or three witnesses, after which jurors will hear closing arguments and instructions from the trial judge. Deliberations then begin.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said the team has not yet decided whether Hunter Biden will testify in his own defense.
His lawyers admitted at trial that he regularly smoked crack cocaine in the months before and after he purchased the gun at a Wilmington gun store in October. 12, 2018. But they tried to argue that he had recently returned from rehab and was not on crack when he bought the gun and owned it. Hunter Biden, according to his lawyers, did not lie on that form to purchase the gun and was not a drug user when the gun was in his possession.
Hallie Biden was a key witness for prosecutors. She had communicated with Hunter Biden around the time of purchasing the gun and saw him while he still had the gun in his possession. Many of their texts were read to the jury, with Hunter Biden lashing out at her when she begged him to get sober and said she feared for her life.
“I’m afraid you’re dying,” she texted him in October. “And I can’t live without you.”
In October. On the 14th – two days after Hunter Biden purchased the gun – he texted Hallie Biden after she frantically tried to reach him: “I was sleeping on a car smoking crack on 4th street and Rodney,” the post said.
Lowell suggested to jurors that the text message was not true and was sent because Hunter Biden was trying to avoid his sister-in-law.
Hallie Biden told the juniors that Hunter Biden showed up at her Wilmington home on the morning of October. 23, looking exhausted. She suspected he may have used drugs. While he slept, she searched his car for evidence of drug use, something she said she and her children would do regularly in hopes of helping him beat his addiction.
Hallie Biden said she found “remnants of crack cocaine,” drug paraphernalia and the gun Hunter Biden purchased 11 days earlier. She put the gun in a leather pouch that Hunter sometimes used, drove to a nearby upscale grocery store and threw it in an outdoor trash can.
“I panicked,” she tested. “I didn’t want him to get hurt and I didn’t want my kids to find out and get hurt.”
During cross-examination, Lowell worked to sow doubt in younger minds about whether Hunter Biden was using drugs during this time. He asked Hallie Biden if she saw Hunter Biden using drugs during that time — or if she saw him at all between October 1 and October 1. 6 and October 22.
She tested that she didn’t think she did.
“You don’t know if he was drinking or using? » Lowell asked him.
“Exactly,” replied Hallie Biden.
She tested that when Hunter Biden learned she had thrown the gun away, he told her to go back to the trash and get it. But when she did, the gun was gone. So she filed a police report and Hunter Biden went to her house to talk to police about the missing gun.
“I’m sorry,” Hallie texted Hunter that day. “I just want you to be safe. It wasn’t safe.
Hallie Biden told the juniors that she has worked to put that chapter of her life behind her. She got married this weekend and frequently looked at her husband, who was seated in the second row of the courtroom, during his testimony.
Several members of the Biden family were also present in the courtroom Thursday, as they have been all week. Valerie Biden Owens, the president’s sister, sat next to Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen, wearing a crisp white dress and scarf.
First lady Jill Biden, who flew to France Wednesday afternoon to attend the D-Day anniversary commemoration ceremony, was returning to Wilmington Thursday evening and is expected to return to court Friday.
The last witness of the day was a man who often searched the grocery store’s trash bins for recyclables and found the gun Hallie Biden had thrown.
Ed Banner, 80, had difficulty hearing the questions asked of him until lawyers stood next to him in the witness box. Banner confirmed finding a silver pistol and bringing it home.
When a police investigator came to get the gun, Banner said, he immediately returned it. Although the detective had verified earlier that Banner had kept the gun with a bunch of socks – and the gun itself in a sock – Banner scoffed at that detail.
“I didn’t put it in a sock, no,” the witness told Lowell. “I don’t know anything about no socks.”
After Banner left the witness stand, Judge Maryellen Noreika joked with the attorneys that questioning a witness closely was not like in the movies.
“No, it’s not the same as when Perry Mason did it,” Lowell said.