A judge has ruled that Hunter Biden must appear in an Arkansas court for his paternity case.
Lawyers for his baby mama Lunden Roberts say former flame Hunter, 53, has not provided ‘a single item or word of discovery’ in their ongoing child support lawsuit.
Independence County Circuit Judge Holly Meyer today ordered Biden to attend the court hearing on May 1 because his absence is ‘interfering with the process of litigation.’
She said today: ‘From now on … I want both of your clients at every hearing I conduct. I will no longer allow us to excuse clients because it is interfering with the progress of litigation, which is taking way too long to get over simple points.’
In a Friday filing, lawyers for Roberts insisted the recovering drug addict should be locked up at the Cleburne County Detention Center and stay there until he complies with a court order to hand over the docs, DailyMail.com revealed.
Hunter, 53, pictured here with son Beau Biden, Jr., 3, has not provided ‘a single item or word of discovery’ in ongoing child support lawsuit with Lunden Roberts, the mother of his four-year-old daughter Navy Joan Roberts. Six months ago Hunter tried to recalculate the monthly amount he pays Roberts, 32
In a Friday filing Lunden’s lawyers insist the recovering drug addict should be locked up at the Cleburne County Detention Center and stay there until he complies with a court order to hand over his financial records. Navy Joan was born in August 2018 but she remained a secret until Roberts sued Hunter for child support in her native Arkansas
The judge’s latest demands comes after she expressed frustration during a Zoom hearing Monday. The comment came after Biden’s paternity case representative Brent Langdon said that his laptop was still in a repair shop.
There will now be an in-person hearing for 9am on May 1 at the Independence County courthouse in Batesville, Arkansas, which Biden must attend.
The filing comes as it’s learned Hunter’s lawyers are scheduled to meet with US attorney David Weiss next week over four charges against him – three related to tax crimes and a felony charge related to a gun purchase.
The child support bombshell comes six months after Hunter tried to recalculate the monthly amount he pays Roberts, 32, the mother of Navy Joan Roberts – the little girl he barely acknowledges is his.
The move backfired when single mom Roberts refused to re-negotiate and demanded that Hunter produce detailed financial records to demonstrate why he’s suffered a ‘substantial’ loss of earnings.
In the new filing, her attorney, Clinton Lancaster, accuses the First Son of ‘flaunting the dignity and authority of the court’ by failing to adhere to the discovery rules and deadlines which were reasserted at a February 22 hearing.
‘In those two months, the defendant has provided no additional discovery – not so much as one single item or word – and has failed to supplement his answers at the court’s directive,’ Lancaster fumes.
‘There is no valid excuse or justification for the defendant’s failure to provide the required disclosures as the court has granted every single protective order the defendant has asked for since the inception of this case … the defendant is playing games with this court.’
Calling on Circuit Judge Holly Meyer to hold Hunter in contempt, Lancaster adds: ‘The defendant’s actions are a willful and flagrant violation of this court’s previous order entered on the defendant’s motion.
‘This court should incarcerate the defendant in the Cleburne County Detention Center until he complies with this court’s orders and answers discovery. In the alternative, this court should sanction the defendant as appropriate and just.’
The bitterly contested case is likely headed toward a two-day bench trial in July.
In the new filing, Lunden’s attorney Clinton Lancaster accuses the First Son of ‘flaunting the dignity and authority of the court’ by failing to adhere to the discovery rules and deadlines which were reasserted at a February 22 hearing. ‘This court should incarcerate the defendant in the Cleburne County Detention Center until he complies with this court’s orders,’ says the filing
Hunter will also have to submit to a deposition in June in which Roberts’ lawyers will likely grill him about his various businesses and shady overseas ventures.
They’ll also want to know how it’s possible that Hunter’s finances have cratered while he’s selling paintings for up to $500,000 apiece under his new guise as an abstract artist.
Roberts won a reported $2.5 million settlement from Hunter after taking him to court in 2019 and forcing him to take a DNA test to prove he fathered Navy Joan during their 2017 fling.
Also filed Friday was correspondence suggesting that Hunter’s legal team are trying to block Roberts from retaining Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump administration staffer, as an expert witness.
Biden and his lawyer pal Kevin Morris are suing Zeigler, founder of conservative think-tank Marco Polo, for alleged harassment and invasion of privacy in a separate case related to his infamous abandoned laptop.
‘The last time I checked, the opposing party does not get to choose the other party’s expert witness,’ Lancaster wrote to his counterparts on April 21.
‘Even if Mr. Ziegler were not an expert, which he is a bona fide expert on Hunter Biden, I would hire him as a staff member of my law firm for his work on this case.
‘I don’t know or understand the problem with Mr. Ziegler, other than that Mr. Biden and his California attorney, Kevin Morris, are suing him in Delaware.’
The adorable, blonde-haired girl is the fourth of his five children but neither he, nor his parents Joe and Jill Biden, have ever met the child or publicly acknowledged her existence.
Hunter claimed during the 10-month case that he was ‘unemployed and had no monthly income’ despite living in a $12,000-per-month Hollywood rental and driving a Porsche.
But when an Independence County judge ordered him to produce financial records he repeatedly failed to do so and instead settled out of court, the two sides announcing a ‘global, final settlement of all issues’.
In September last year Hunter reopened the case, pleading poverty, writing: ‘Since the entry of the existing child support order there has been a substantial material change in the Movant’s financial circumstances, including but not limited to his income.’
Roberts refused to buckle and raised the stakes by petitioning the court to officially rename her daughter Navy Joan Biden – to ‘benefit from carrying the Biden Family name.’
In February 2022 Roberts gave evidence to a Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter for alleged tax crimes, joining a growing list of former business partners and associates who have been drawn into the Department of Justice’s secretive three-year probe into his overseas dealings
Neither Joe Biden nor Hunter have ever met Navy Joan. Joe is seen holding his grandson Beau at the White House
Lancaster also fired off a fresh discovery request running into hundreds of questions covering Hunter’s assets, earnings, overseas business dealings in Ukraine and China, plus any payouts to attorneys and agents.
Sources say the list also homed in on Hunter’s recent income, asking him to itemize any artworks he’s sold in the past couple of years, the names of the buyers and any paperwork related to the purchases.
So far, Hunter is yet to comply, complaining that the lengthy interrogatories are ‘vague and ambitious’ and asking the court to strike down some of the queries.
He’s also opposing the name change on the grounds that it’s ‘political warfare’ against the Biden family and the new moniker will rob the child of her ‘peaceful existence.’
In a case schedule obtained by DailyMail.com, Judge Meyer insists both parties must comply fully with discovery requests by May 22, a day before a pre-trial hearing.
She’s also put in place in a protective order so Hunter’s financial information can be filed and kept under seal.
The trial is listed for July 24-25 with Meyer warning the pair against any frivolous delays, writing: ‘No continuance will be granted unless for good cause shown.’
Navy Joan was born in August 2018 but she remained a secret until Roberts sued Hunter for child support in her native Arkansas.
Her ex-lover claimed in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, that he went on such a ‘rampage’ in the wake of his 2017 divorce from Kathleen Buhle that he couldn’t remember the names of the women he bedded.
‘It’s why I would later challenge in court the woman from Arkansas who had a baby in 2018 and claimed the child was mine – I had no recollection of our encounter. That’s how little connection I had with anyone,’ Hunter wrote.
It was initially reported that Hunter met Roberts while she worked as a stripper at a DC club which Hunter frequented.
But texts retrieved from his notorious abandoned laptop proved that she was in fact on the payroll at Rosemont Seneca, Hunter’s investment firm.
Navy Joan gets none of the perks of having a president for a grandfather, nor the round-the-clock Secret Service protection enjoyed by the rest of the Biden brood
She and Hunter conceived Navy Joan around December 2017 while he was still in a relationship with his brother Beau’s widow, Hallie.
The pair remained in communication throughout her pregnancy until he abruptly cut her off.
Hunter has never seen Navy Joan and could not pick her out of a photo lineup, according to court filings.
She’s never met her grandpa Joe, 80, despite the President fawning over his six other grandkids and frequently bringing them along for events and speeches.
Navy Joan gets none of the perks, nor the round-the-clock Secret Service protection enjoyed by the rest of the Biden brood.
However, family friends say the youngster is ‘adorable, loved, safe and very happy’ as she grows up in rural Arkansas blissfully unaware of her proximity to the caustic world of US politics.
In February 2022 Roberts gave evidence to a Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter for alleged tax crimes, joining a growing list of former business partners and associates who have been drawn into the Department of Justice’s secretive three-year probe into his overseas dealings.
Federal prosecutors were particularly interested in what she learned about Hunter’s finances, according to her attorney.
