FREE
21K unhoused Angelenos moved inside since last December
Science Center completes twin solid rocket boosters for shuttle display
PG 02
PG 23
MONDAY, DECEMBER 11-DECEMBER 17, 2023
VISIT MONTEREYPARKPRESS.COM
VOL. 11,
NO. 150
Hunter Biden charged in Los Angeles with tax crimes
Ex-La Habra police chief gets 11 years in prison for role in Jan. 6 riots
By City News Service
By City News Service
P
resident Joe Biden’s son Hunter was charged Thursday in Los Angeles with felony and misdemeanor tax offenses for allegedly refusing to pay his taxes and instead spending the money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, exotic cars and clothing. Hunter Biden, 53, of Los Angeles, “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The indictment alleges that Hunter Biden engaged in a four-year scheme in which he chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in selfassessed federal taxes he owed for the 2016 through 2019 tax years and to evade the assessment of taxes for the 2018 tax year when he filed false returns. It was not immediately known when Biden would make his initial appearance in Los Angeles federal court. Prosecutors allege Biden withdrew millions of dollars from his company’s coffers outside of the payroll and tax withholding process; stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for the 2015 tax year; failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes; failed to file his 2017 and 2018 tax returns, on time; and when filing his 2018 returns, included false business deductions in order to reduce the very substantial tax liability he faced as of February 2020. Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement that “based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought.”
F
Hunter Biden. | Photo courtesy of CSIS/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Lowell alleged that the special counsel in the case, U.S. Attorney David Weiss, “bowed to Republican pressure to file unprecedented and unconstitutional gun charges to renege on a non-prosecution resolution. Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence — and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full — the U.S. Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors.” Described in the 56-page indictment as a Georgetown- and Yale-educated lawyer, lobbyist, consultant and businessperson, Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese
private equity fund during the time of the tax allegations, prosecutors said. “He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/ or his domestic corporations, Owasco PC and Owasco LLC,” according to the indictment. In addition to his business interests, the defendant was an employee of a multinational law firm, the document states. Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, Biden spent millions of dollars on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,”
the indictment alleges. The indictment charges Biden with three felony tax offenses: one count of tax evasion and two counts of filing a false return; and six misdemeanor tax offenses: four counts of failure to pay his taxes and two counts of failure to file his taxes. If convicted, Biden faces up to 17 years in prison, prosecutors noted, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Biden pleaded not guilty in October to federal firearms charges in Delaware that allege he lied about his drug use while buying a handgun. The charges were brought after an earlier proposed plea deal unraveled under questioning from the judge overseeing the case.
ormer La Habra Police Department Chief Alan Hostetter, a prominent COVID-19 restrictions critic and activist, was sentenced Thursday in Washington, D.C., to more than 11 years in federal prison for his role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Hostetter, a 59-year-old yoga instructor who used to live in San Clemente but has since moved to Poolville, Texas, was convicted in July in a nonjury bench trial before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who ruled he was guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, according to court records. Lamberth sentenced Hostetter to 135 months in federal prison and 36 months of supervised release. Co-defendant Russell Taylor pleaded guilty in April and was next due in court Jan. 18. Taylor faces 51 to 87 months in prison. Four Riverside County men — Erik Scott Warner, 47, of Menifee, Felipe Antonio “Tony” Martinez, 49, of Lake Elsinore, Derek Kinnison, 41, of Lake Elsinore, and Ronald Mele, 53, of Temecula — were convicted in November and were awaiting sentencing. Hostetter, who was chief from 2009 through 2010 when he took disability retirement, and the defendants were accused of putting together a plan after President Joe Biden’s election to halt the certification of the Electoral College vote in Congress on Jan. 6, coordinating their efforts through Telegram, an encrypted messaging application. According to prosecutors, the defendants discussed and planned a cross-country road trip to the Capitol and promoted events sponsored by Hostetter’s American Phoenix Project, which opposed COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and has helped push the lie that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors were seeking 151 months in federal prison plus $2,000 in restitution. The prosecutors recommended a stiffer punishment for the defendant “to reflect the gravity of Hostetter’s conspiratorial conduct, including his planning and preparations with Russell Taylor for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th — an attack that was clearly calculated to influence and affect the conduct of the United States government and to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.” Hostetter did not file a sentencing brief. His advisory counsel, Karren Kenney, told City News Service that she thought the sentence was “absurd and a travesty.” Kenney argued it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.. “He got 135 months for basically being present at the Capitol, walking with the crowd, carrying a bullhorn and saying, ‘Stop the steal,’” Kenney said. “He’s clearly being punished for protected First Amendment activities. He never went inside the building, never pushed against any police line, did not destroy any property.” See Riots Page 24