Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty in his federal tax evasion case, surprising federal prosecutors as they prepare to begin his trial on Thursday.
Biden has previously denied allegations that he deliberately evaded $1.4m (£1m) in income tax between 2016 and 2019.
Biden, 54, initially said he wanted to enter a so-called Alford plea — where he would accept the charges while maintaining his innocence — but later said he would plead guilty when prosecutors objected.
After prosecutors read the entire 56-page indictment against him aloud in court, the judge asked Biden if he agreed he was “guilty of all the crimes charged.”
“I agree,” Biden said.
His last-minute reversal, announced for the first time in a Los Angeles court on Thursday as jury selection was about to begin, was his second criminal conviction this year.
Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said his client wanted to avoid trial “for personal gain”, not wanting friends and family to have to testify about something that happened “when he was addicted to drugs”.
If he pleads guilty to all nine counts, Biden faces a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 to $1 million, Judge Mark Scarsi said.
He is expected to be sentenced after the December election.
There is a portrait of the president in every federal courthouse in the country, and Biden, along with his wife, lawyers and Secret Service, had to walk past his father’s portrait on his way to the courthouse.
President Joe Biden has previously said he would not use his executive powers to pardon his son.
The prosecution — representing President Biden’s justice department — said it was “shocked” by Alford’s plea offer and was unwilling to agree to a deal if it allowed Hunter Biden to assert his innocence.
“Hunter Biden is not innocent. Hunter Biden is guilty,” lead prosecutor Leo Wise said in court.
“We are going to court today to try this case.”
Biden had previously sought to dismiss the case, arguing that the Justice Department’s investigation was politically motivated and that he was targeted because Republican lawmakers were trying to impeach his father.
He also argued that the special counsel in the case, David Weiss, was appointed illegally.
Those arguments were rejected by Judge Scarsi, a Trump appointee who is overseeing the case.
The president’s son was charged with three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors in December. These include failure to file and pay taxes, tax evasion and filing false tax returns.
According to the indictment, Biden earned $7 million in income from foreign business deals between 2016 and 2019.
The indictment also said he spent nearly $5 million during that time on “everything but taxes.”
Those purchases included drugs, prostitutes, lavish hotels, luxury cars and clothing, which Biden allegedly mislabeled as business expenses, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors said Biden’s actions amounted to “a four-year conspiracy.”
“In each year that the defendant failed to pay his taxes, the defendant had sufficient funds to pay some or all of the taxes owed when they were due,” the indictment said. “But the defendant chose not to pay.”
His tax evasion trial marks Biden’s second federal criminal trial this year.
In June, he was convicted of gun possession and drug use, becoming the first son of a sitting US president to be criminally convicted.
Specifically, Biden was convicted of three felonies related to purchasing a handgun in 2018 while struggling with drug addiction, and lying about drug use on a federal application to purchase a gun.
After the gun and tax allegations first surfaced, Biden reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors but later fell through.
He got nothing for pleading guilty on Thursday, except avoiding a public trial.
