Jury selection will begin in Hunter Biden’s tax trial months after his gun conviction

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jury selection is set to begin Thursday in Hunter Biden’s federal tax trial just months after the president’s son was convicted of gun charges in a separate case.

The case in Los Angeles federal court accuses Hunter Biden of a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while pulling in millions of dollars from foreign business entities. He is already facing potential prison time after a Delaware jury convicted him in June of lying on a 2018 federal form to purchase a gun that he possessed for 11 days.

Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his 2016 through 2019 taxes and his attorneys have indicated they will argue he didn’t act “willfully,” or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, placed some restrictions on what jurors will be allowed to hear about the traumatic events that Hunter Biden’s family, friends and attorneys say led to his drug addiction.

The judge barred attorneys from connecting his substance abuse struggles to the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from cancer or the car accident that killed his mother and sister when he was a toddler. He also rejected a proposed defense expert lined up to testify about addiction.

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