Hunter Biden’s former mistress is asking a court to jail him for "criminal contempt" in their custody dispute, saying he has flouted the judge’s order to turn over financial information.
Biden, who is fighting in an Arkansas circuit court to reduce his child support payments and block his four-year-old daughter from taking the "Biden" last name, is "playing games with discovery" by failing to fully disclose his investment and income records, according to a new court filing from the child’s mother, Lunden Alexis Roberts. Her lawyers say it is a "willful and contemptuous violation" of the court’s orders by Biden, who aims to "disown" the preschooler he fathered with Roberts.
The call only adds to Biden’s mounting legal challenges, which include a federal tax probe and a House Oversight Committee investigation into potential influence-peddling by the Biden family. Roberts’s legal team has questioned Biden’s claims that he is financially strapped, and it is threatening to call several of his high-profile business associates to appear in court if the child support dispute goes to trial.
Roberts asked the court in April to hold Biden in civil contempt for dodging court-ordered disclosure requests. Judge Holly Meyer gave Biden a stern warning in May that there would be consequences for future failure to comply with discovery and ordered him to appear in person for all future hearings.
Roberts’s lawyer, Clint Lancaster, said in a filing last week that Biden was "playing hide the ball" and has not turned over complete information about his income, assets, and investments. Lancaster said the court should hold Biden in contempt to make him a "believer in the rule of law."
"Mr. Biden does not want to disclose his income and assets, says that he is somewhat financially destitute, while he lives on a mountain overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, has Secret Service protection, and enjoys his time abroad (which he has also lied about in discovery)," said Lancaster.
Biden’s legal team shot back that he has provided information about his investments "to the best of his knowledge with a chart of the entities he may have had a direct or indirect interest in." They said Biden "does not have access to some of the information requested for various reasons."
Roberts’s lawyer asked the court to delay a closed-door deposition on Monday of their expert witness, Republican operative Garrett Ziegler, arguing that Ziegler was denied access to information he would need to prepare his testimony. Judge Meyer, however, ordered that the deposition continue as scheduled.
But the parties agreed to cancel a scheduled in-person court hearing in Arkansas on Tuesday, saying they reached an agreement regarding Biden’s disclosure of his lawyers’ payments.