Hunter Biden trial: Ex-wife, former girlfriend detail his drug use, battle with sobriety

WILMINGTON, Del. - Testimony in Hunter Biden’s felony gun trial continued to take a highly personal tone Wednesday as both his ex-wife and former girlfriend told a jury in Wilmington federal court about his struggles with crack cocaine addiction.

Hunter Biden faces three firearms felonies based on claims he lied about his addiction and drug use on a federal form he filled out to purchase a gun at a north Delaware store in October 2018. It is the first time in U.S. history the child of a sitting president has faced a criminal trial.

Prosecutors contend they will show that he was a drug user prohibited from owning a firearm through excerpts from his memoir, his text messages, and those who knew him. Hunter Biden’s defense attorneys have said that prosecutors must show Hunter Biden knowingly lied on the form and that prosecutors can’t prove that, seeking to give jurors a narrative that Hunter Biden was in a failed period of recovery when he bought the gun.

Wednesday was the second day of trial testimony and the first day the jury heard statements from those who were once close to Hunter Biden.

First, Kathleen Buhle, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and mother of three of his children, was called to the witness stand and testified about Hunter Biden’s struggles with alcohol addiction and the discovery that he was using crack cocaine.

Then, Zoe Kestan, Hunter Biden’s former girlfriend, took jurors through her year-long relationship with the president’s son that began at a New York City gentleman's club, his drug use, as well as his failed attempts to cast aside addiction.

“He spoke about no matter how long you are sober, you will be an addict,” Kestan told the jury.

The personal nature of testimony is expected to continue Thursday when prosecutors call Hallie Biden, Hunter Biden's former lover and his brother's widow, who they said will testify about Hunter Biden's and her own drug use around the time he purchased the gun.

Hunter's ex-wife: 'I was worried, scared'

Buhle, who was married to Hunter Biden for nearly 22 years - from 1993 to 2017, told the jury she first knew Hunter Biden was using drugs when she found a pipe in the ashtray on the porch of their home in Washington, D.C., on July 3, 2015 – a day after their wedding anniversary. She said she confronted him.

“It was very short,” Buhle said. “He acknowledged smoking crack.”

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She said that before that, she feared he was using drugs because he was discharged from the Navy for testing positive for cocaine.

“I was worried, but I had no proof,” she said. “I was worried, scared.”

She said the two stopped living together after that, but she still saw him as her partner and they were in therapy together.

“I didn’t consider us separated until I learned about the infidelity,” Buhle told the jury.

She also noted that Hunter Biden for years struggled with alcohol abuse and had sought rehab for that as well. Defense attorneys have argued that some texts referring to sobriety from around the time Hunter Biden purchased the gun actually reference his alcohol abuse, which is not prohibited by the laws being used to charge him with federal felonies.

Regarding drug use, Buhle told jurors that for years, even after their divorce, she’d search Hunter Biden’s vehicle for drugs and paraphernalia because she didn’t want their three children in the car with drugs. She told the jury those searches continued through 2019.

However, on cross-examination, she told jurors that she didn’t know Hunter Biden had moved to California in the summer of 2018, nor that he had returned to Delaware that fall. She said she didn’t know the exact days she searched his vehicle and added that she never actually saw Hunter Biden use drugs.

Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend: Biden was 'incredibly charming'

Kestan, a designer who lives in Brooklyn, met Hunter Biden in late 2017 when she was working part-time at Vivid Cabaret, a gentleman’s club, in New York.

She was about to clock out when she was asked to do one more 30-minute, private dance. She arrived at the room with another woman to find Hunter Biden, who she did not know. The club was about to close so the music was off.

“He took out his phone and played a Fleet Foxes song,” she told the jury.

She said after about 10 minutes of chatting, he went onto a balcony and smoked what she believed to be “crack cocaine.”

“He was incredibly charming and charismatic and I felt really safe around him,” she told the jury.

They’d meet again a few days later and she ended up staying with him for five days at the Soho Grand Hotel in New York. This began a series of multiple rendezvous at hotels in Atlantic City and New York City.

Prodded by prosecutors, she told the jury about Hunter Biden smoking crack as frequently as every 20 minutes in private and sometimes less frequently when in public. She told jurors how Hunter Biden would have her withdraw cash from his account for drug deals, but also to pay for other expenses like personal gifts, as well as clothing for his children.

Prosecutors have said large cash withdrawals by Hunter Biden, including during the months he purchased the gun, insinuate him using the cash to buy drugs. Defense attorneys contend those cash withdrawals were used on many things like rehab services, living expenses and his children's tuition.

Overview: What you need to know about the case

Prosecutors also used Kestan's testimony to introduce photos of Hunter Biden with drug paraphernalia from the hotel trips. Kestan testified she had family and friends suffer from addiction and felt herself caring for Hunter Biden and starting discussions about his addiction.

On one of the hotel rendezvous in early 2018, she said they came up with a plan.

Kestan testified that her apartment lease in New York was expiring, and Hunter Biden wanted to move to California to get sober, so the two decided to move together. The plan was for Hunter Biden to go to California first and detox.

“It seems like the plan had gone out the window,” she said.

She testified that she arrived at the southern California bungalow he had rented to find drug paraphernalia, alcohol, food and two women that Hunter Biden said would not leave. She testified about a string of hotel stays, drug buys and Hunter Biden’s consistent drug use over that summer in California. Prosecutors used the narrative to enter more photos of Hunter Biden and drug paraphernalia.

He told the jury she'd do favors for him − at his request − like pick up his car, send his forgotten laptop back to him in an Uber and, on one occasion, clean up liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia from a hotel that he left in haste.

She moved back to New York in August 2018 but visited Hunter Biden again in Malibu in September 2018. She testified that he continued to use drugs at that time, less than a month before he is accused of lying about his drug use when purchasing a firearm.

She said throughout their relationship, he was cognizant that he was addicted. After September, she didn’t see him again until he was in a rehab facility that November in Massachusetts. She said he was using drugs again there and she helped him buy more in Providence, Rhode Island, where she'd attended college a few years earlier.

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney, has conceded Hunter Biden struggled with addiction before and after the gun purchase but argued that prosecutors can’t prove he knew himself to be an unlawful user or person addicted when he purchased the gun in October.

To that end, Lowell’s cross-examination of Kestan elicited that she was not in contact with Hunter Biden in October 2018.

Gun shop employee: 'He wrote no'

Testimony from Kestan and Buhle is meant to supplement excerpts from Hunter Biden’s memoir, as well as his text messages that prosecutors contend show his drug abuse. Day two of trial testimony ended with Gordon Cleveland and turned to the paperwork at the center of the trial.

Cleveland, a city of Wilmington employee, testified that he worked at StarQuest Shooters and Survival Supply in northern Delaware part-time in October 2018 when he noticed a man driving a black Cadillac pull into the shop.

When asked how he remembered the type of car Hunter Biden was driving, Cleveland replied: "I like guns and I like cars."

The man driving the car was Hunter Biden, who Cleveland said picked out a Colt Cobra .38 special. He said he watched as Hunter Biden answered where the form that asks if he was an unlawful user of or addicted to controlled substances.

“He wrote 'no,'” Cleveland testified.

Prosecutor Derek Hines asked if Hunter Biden sought any clarification or expressed confusion about what the terms of the question meant. Cleveland answered no. Prosecutors have said that answer is the root of two of the felony charges Hunter Biden faces.

Cross-examination of Cleveland will continue on Thursday morning.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Hunter Biden's ex-wife, former girlfriend testify about his drug use