Hunter Biden wins $1.7m in suit over Iran bribery claim by ex-CEO of Overstock.com | Hunter Biden
A federal judge on Friday awarded Hunter Biden $1.7 million in punitive damages in his defamation lawsuit against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.
Biden files lawsuit against Donald Trump ally Byrne He denied the 2020 election results And funded In 2023, he accused Byrne of lying in an interview about Biden seeking bribes from the Iranian government in the fall of 2021.
Hunter’s father, Joe Biden, was the US president at the time. And Byrne denied in an interview that Hunter Biden offered to go to Iran to see his father — in exchange for $800 million in bribes — to “unfreeze” frozen Iranian assets and have the U.S. “go easy” on Iran during “nuclear talks” between the two countries. According to Hunter Biden’s case.
Biden alleged in his complaint that Byrne “made, published, and repeated false and defamatory statements knowing full well that the statements were false for the purpose of subjecting plaintiff to harassment, intimidation, and harm.”
One order On Friday, U.S. district judge Stephen Wilson of California wrote that Byrne disputed during the trial that he made the statements with “actual malice.” And Wilson wrote that Byrne told the court he believed the statements were true because he was told about the alleged bribery scheme by an Iranian government official.
But Wilson, who was appointed to the federal judiciary during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, wrote that Byrne did not allege that the Iranian official had direct contact with Biden, did not provide any evidence to support his claims, and “did not present to this court throughout the course of the litigation any documentary evidence that would allow a reasonable person to believe the story to be true.”
The judge also said that throughout the case, the court found “sufficient evidence” to support a finding that Byrne “knew the story was false and that much of the narrative describing a secret meeting with an Iranian government official was fabricated.”
The case was scheduled for a jury trial in October. But the judge wrote Friday that Byrne “did not show up” for the hearing, fired the lead trial attorney, and postponed the hearing “at Biden and the court’s expense.”
Wilson tracked down Byrne after he failed to show up for the hearing. be default As a sanction for what the judge described as “repeated, willful disobedience of court orders and sustained efforts to delay trial.”
On Friday, the judge wrote that “the evidence is clear and convincing that the defendant made an intentional misrepresentation in conscious disregard of the plaintiff’s rights” and awarded Biden $1 nominal damages as well as $1.7 million in punitive damages.
The Wilson judge also ordered Byrne to pay Biden nearly $35,000 in court sanctions.
Biden’s lawyer, Bryan Sullivan, told the Guardian on Saturday that Byrne had effectively accused his client of “treason” and that a judge had now “found every single one of those allegations to be fabricated.”
“The verdict is for $1.7 million in punitive damages, which is the floor, not the ceiling, of the amount Mr. Byrne owes for his conduct,” Sullivan added. “If Mr. Byrne chooses to repeat any of this, we will be back in court.”
Lawyers said to be representing Byrne did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s comments on Saturday morning.
Friday’s decision in favor of Hunter Biden comes as he has built an online following through social media posts covering topics such as politics, mental health and addiction recovery. He also announced that it would happen. Publishing a series of articles on Substack platform.
It also came after his father granted him pardons for his convictions on federal gun and tax charges in the final days of his presidency.
