According to a decision issued on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, will appear in person in Delaware (East) on October 3 for his public arraignment on illegal weapons possession charges.
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The judge denied Western California resident Hunter Biden’s request to appear via video conference. After originally scheduling the hearing for September 26, he accepted a request from the defense to postpone it by a week, to October 3.
“Mr. Biden will plead not guilty and there is no reason he cannot say those two words via video conference,” his lawyer, Abbe David Lowell, wrote in a letter to the judge on Tuesday.
But Judge Christopher Burke justified his decision by saying that this first appearance is “one of the rare occasions in a criminal case when a defendant physically appears in our court, in front of a judge.”
In addition, “most of the allegations against the defendant are new and were not mentioned in his previous appearance in July 2023, so this is the first time they are being debated in court,” he adds.
Hunter Biden is accused of lying while filling out forms to purchase a firearm in 2018, in which he denied a drug addiction he later admitted to.
In June, he agreed with prosecutor David Weiss to plead guilty to both tax evasion and illegally purchasing firearms, which likely would have allowed him to avoid prison time and a trial. Embarrassing for him and his father.
However, that agreement was overturned after a judge expressed doubts about the agreement’s validity in July.