Hunter Biden arrived at the Los Angeles court early Thursday where his lawyers said he was prepared to offer a guilty plea in his tax evasion trial
Hunter Biden arrived at the Los Angeles court early Thursday where his lawyers said he was prepared to offer a guilty plea in his tax evasion trial AFP

Joe Biden's son Hunter offered to plead guilty in his tax evasion trial on Thursday, as jury selection was about to get under way in a case that has been an embarrassment and a distraction for the US president.

The 54-year-old is accused of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes over the past decade, splurging the money instead on luxury living, sex workers and a drug habit.

A trial had been expected to re-hash sordid details of a life that the defendant and his family -- including the president -- have long acknowledged had gone off the rails.

But on Thursday morning as US District Judge Mark Scarsi was readying to oversee the selection of a jury, Biden's lawyers said their client was prepared to plead guilty.

Attorney Abbe Lowell said Biden was willing to enter a guilty plea, although he would continue to maintain his innocence.

A so-called "Alford Plea" is offered when a defendant acknowledges a trial would likely result in a guilty verdict, even while he insists he is not culpable.

It was not immediately clear if the plea would apply to all nine tax-related counts -- three felonies and six misdemeanors -- of failing to pay taxes.

Scarsi declared a recess that will allow prosecutors to discuss the move, and the court is expected to reconvene later Thursday.

Biden has already spent a chunk of 2024 in court, having been convicted in Delaware of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun -- a felony.

Lawyers for Biden say he is only before the court now because of who he is.

"They want to slime him because that is the whole purpose," Biden's attorney Mark Geragos reportedly said during an August hearing in which he accused prosecutors of attempted character assassination.

Biden's defense team argues that the non-payment of taxes was an oversight in a life wrought chaotic by a spiraling drug addiction and the trauma of losing his older brother, Beau, to a brain tumor in 2015.

Biden has paid the back taxes, as well as penalties levied by authorities, and had previously reached a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail.

That agreement fell apart at the last minute, and Biden is understood to have been trying to reach another ever since.

But that has been difficult for prosecutors whose every move in this election year is being scrutinized by Republicans who charge the defendant is being treated leniently because he is the president's son.

Hunter Biden has for years been a foil for his father's political opponents, who have sought -- without producing evidence -- to smear the family as a group of criminals who have gained wealth and power because of Joe Biden's career.

The elder Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race in favor of Kamala Harris has taken much of the zeal out of the Republican drive to make an example out of his son.

Guilty verdicts could result in up to 17 years in prison for Biden. The gun felony, which he is yet to be sentenced on, carries a maximum 25-year term.

Hunter Biden, a Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist who lives in Malibu, has said that he has been drug-free since 2019.