Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, was convicted Tuesday in a federal gun trial, and now a judge will have to determine whether he should be imprisoned for the felony conviction.
Hunter Biden was convicted by the 12-person jury on two felony counts for making false statements on a federal gun form about his drug use, and one count for owning a gun unlawfully during an 11-day period.
The three felony counts carry up to 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000. But whether the president’s son will be sentenced to prison — an outcome that could have been avoided with a plea deal that fell apart last year — remains to be seen.
Judge Maryellen Noreika estimated that sentencing would occur 120 days after the conviction, when she will determine whether Hunter Biden will face jail time, though she has yet to set a firm date.
The judge will likely consider a number of factors, including that Hunter Biden is a first-time offender.
Tom Dupree, a former principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, told CBS News that he does think Biden will be sentenced to prison, but more likely for a year or two, rather than a longer sentence.
Some legal experts have argued that the charges brought against Biden are rare, making the sentencing in the case difficult to predict.
Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, told CBS News that it’s rare for the charge to be brought as a standalone charge. And she added that she doesn’t expect that the president’s son will face the maximum sentence, or that the prosecution would ask for the maximum sentence. Levinson noted that “nobody should expect” to see the president’s son “behind bars for a quarter century,” though she made clear that some prison time is likely.
