Hunter Biden jury reaches verdict in gun trial

A verdict has been reached in Hunter Biden 's gun and drugs trial. President Joe Biden 's scandal-plagued son, 54, has been charged with lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on an application by saying he was not a drug user, and illegally having a gun for 11 days. He could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Thirteen witnesses testified in total, and the jury was shown bombshell evidence including his infamous laptop and photos of him weighing and using drugs. Every day, he has been supported by members of his family including First Lady Jill Biden who listened to the emotional testimony.

Hunter Biden's trial kicked off with jury selection on June 3 – just days after former President Donald Trump was convicted in a Manhattan court of 34 felony charges related to his hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels . The back-to-back trials exhibit the prevalence of the legal troubles facing both the current and former president with just five months until the 2024 presidential election.

Each day, Hunter was seen entering the courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware hand-in-hand with his wife Melissa Cohen Biden. Just one week after the trial against the president's son kicked off, closing arguments were presented on Monday and the jury was sent to deliberate a verdict.

If found guilty of all three felony charges, Hunter could face up to 25 years in prison – though first-time offenders don't usually receive the maximum sentence. The charges stem from a 2018 firearm purchase in Delaware, where Hunter stands accused of lying about his addiction to crack cocaine when filling out a federal form to obtain a gun.

The trial, despite only lasting for a week, had several dramatic moments, including an outburst from the first son's wife . The second day of trial on Tuesday, Cohen Biden stomped up to former Trump staffer Garrett Ziegler while he was attending the hearing and called him a 'Nazi piece of s***.' The dramatic outburst outside the Delaware courtroom saw Hunter's wife in a baby blue jacket, pink shirt and heels get just six inches from Ziegler and said: 'You have no right to be here you Nazi piece of s**t.'

Ziegler did not respond. The former Trump staffer became infamous to the Bidens after publishing extensive material from Hunter's laptop through Marco Polo – his right wing nonprofit. Contents of the explosive laptop harddrive were shared with the jury during the trial – including videos, photos and text messages. Evidence from the device exhibited how the president's son was in the throes of a drug addiction in 2018, which was the same year he purchased the firearm.

Melissa Cohen Biden shook her head as Prosecutor Derek Hines took the Macbook Pro 13 from a plastic sleeve, walked it across the courtroom and held it up to the jury during a dramatic day in court. The revelation came on a second day of the trial that heard Hunter 'smoked crack every 15 minutes' as prosecution went into detail about his life of 'debauchery'. Hines' first witness was FBI agent Erika Jensen, who confirmed the device belonged to Hunter – an admission that flew in the face of many who tried to discredit its contents as Russian disinformation.

He then showed the court evidence taken from the 'Laptop from Hell' - including pictures of text messages where Hunter refers to himself as an 'addict' and his conversations with suspected drug dealers. The laptop, along with admissions in his own memoir Beautiful Things, revealed he was in the depths of addiction during the same time period he said on a federal firearms form that he was not addicted to or a user of illicit substances.

Hunter is also facing a separate trial in California on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. It is expected to go to trial in the fall. Both cases were meant to be resolved through a deal he struck with prosecutors last summer following the yearslong investigation into his business dealings. If it held up, the deal would guarantee the president's son would avoid jail time. But the plea deal spectacularly fell apart in court in July 2023, opening Hunter up to new charges and allowing both cases to move forward.

Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned some unusual aspects of the agreement, which included a proposed guilty plea to misdemeanor offenses to resolve the tax crimes and a diversion agreement on the gun charge, which meant as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years the case would be dismissed. Through the trial, multiple Biden family members have shown up to the courthouse at the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building to support Hunter. Those who made appearances include his sister Ashley, his uncle and President Biden's brother James and the president's sister and Hunter's aunt Valerie.

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