Hunter Biden is in financial turmoil after his paintings sold for less than the six-figure price tags estimated by his gallerist, who previously spent time in jail for making terrorist threats.
The underwhelming sales have led Biden to consider launching a legal defense fund to help pay his mounting attorney bills stemming from a federal tax crime investigation and congressional inquiries into his foreign business dealings, the Washington Post reported.
Biden has sold around a dozen paintings "for a fraction of the $500,000 price tag once estimated" by his Manhattan gallerist Georges Berges, according to the Post. The congressional investigations into Biden have also spooked some prospective buyers, a source told the newspaper.
Berges, who was approved by the White House to vet Biden’s art sales for ethical conflicts, was sentenced to three months in jail in 1998 for threatening to stab a man to death and was later accused of defrauding an investor in a lawsuit that was settled in 2018.
Biden’s paintings failed to impress the art world. Tabish Khan, a London art critic, told Politico that "an initial online glance suggests there’s nothing new or challenging about his work."
Biden, a former lobbyist who raked in millions through questionable domestic and foreign business dealings as his father’s political career flourished, has claimed to have financial problems for years.
Biden told a court that he was broke and unemployed in 2019, while fighting a child paternity suit brought against him by an exotic dancer he impregnated. His ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, said in 2017 divorce filings that the couple was deeply in debt and that Biden spent prolifically on "drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he had sexual relations."
Despite the financial struggles, Biden managed to pay off a $450,000 tax lien in just six days in 2020, while renting a $12,000-per-month home in Hollywood Hills.