As federal prosecutors continue their criminal investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes and international trade relations, the president’s son, who travels between Washington DC and a long Hollywood Hills home, is downstairs, consulting lawyers and focusing on his new artistic career.
Biden, who turns 51 next week, is preparing a solo exhibition with Soho art dealer Georges Berges, who currently represents Sylvester Stallone. Berges was once arrested for “terrorist threats” and assault with a deadly weapon in California and has strong ties to China.
Biden, who continues to hold business interests in a $ 1 billion Chinese investment firm, moved into the 2,000-square-foot Los Angeles home with his wife Melissa Cohen in January 2020, two months before the birth of the his son.
The home is connected to Shane Khoh, a Los Angeles-based businessman and real estate investor who is CEO of SXU Investment Holdings LLC, the California-owned company that has owned $ 3.8 million since 2011, according to public records. Khoh, an American who is fluent in Chinese, is on the board of directors of Siong Heng Realty Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based real estate holding company, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is also listed as a “risk partner” for Diverse Communities Impact Fund, a private equity group that has former Democratic governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson on its advisory board.
The house appeared in a New York Times profile of Biden as an emerging abstract painter last year. Last year, Khoh told The Washington Examiner that Biden paid $ 12,000 a month for the property, which includes a pool house that Biden has turned into an art studio. Khoh denied any previous relationship with Biden in the newspaper.
But when The Post asked this week about his arrangements with his tenant, Khoh exclaimed, “I have nothing to say about Hunter Biden. I have no comment “.
Others in Biden’s orbit were even more reluctant.
Calls to Lunden, Alexis Roberts, an Arkansas stripper who sued Biden for paternity and child support after the birth of her 2-year-old daughter, declined to comment, as did her lawyer. It is not known how much Biden pays for child support for “Baby Doe,” as referred to in court documents. The father of five had initially argued that the child was not his and repeatedly tried to delay the case. Roberts, who met Biden at a strip club in Washington, DC, where he used to work, said in a December 2019 court statement that Biden had not provided any financial support to the boy.
Although Biden has stripped itself of many of its former business interests, it does not appear to have cash problems. He has been seen driving around Los Angeles in a Porsche Panamera, which sells for more than $ 90,000. It reportedly maintains control of a limited liability corporation that has a 10 percent stake in BHR Partners, a Chinese privately held company with $ 2 billion in assets and partial ownership of the Bank of China.
Biden’s stake in the Chinese firm is owned by Skaneateles LLC, a company named after his hometown, New York, of his mother Neilia Hunter Biden. The company has used the Hollywood Hills home as one of its addresses. Neilia, Joe Biden’s first wife, died in a 1972 car accident in Delaware that also killed Biden’s 1-year-old sister Naomi. Hunter Biden and his older brother Beau, who were young children, were injured in the crash.
“It’s like a lottery ticket you have on hand with a 10 percent stake in a company worth billions,” a source said. “Imagine if this company is worth $ 2 billion, Biden will take $ 200 million.”
Biden’s complicated international trade relations became a heated political issue in the final months of the 2020 presidential campaign after The Post revealed a large number of emails from Hunter’s laptop asking questions about the then-candidate’s ties. Joe Biden with his son’s foreign companies, including Burisma. The Ukrainian energy company reportedly paid Hunter $ 50,000 a month between 2014 and 2019 to serve on its board of directors. Hunter Biden is also accused of promoting the interests of CEFC China Energy Co., a Chinese conglomerate that had to pay him more than $ 10 million a year to run for Washington officials.
Last year, a federal watchdog asked the Justice Department to initiate a “full investigation” of Hunter Biden, which they say was not registered under federal rules under the Foreign Agent Registration Act governing those which put pressure on a foreign entity.
“Hunter Biden’s wrapped network of shell companies, LLCs, investment vehicles and options agreements makes it virtually impossible to know where you get revenue from,” said Thomas Anderson, director of the National Center for Legal Policy, adding. that evading FARA regulations allowed Biden and its associates to operate under radar.
Selling your abstract artwork to wealthy investors can also be a lucrative way to track cash, Anderson said. “However, we very much doubt that a career as an artist will do anything more than act as a vehicle to further protect where that income comes from,” he said.
But Hunter Biden told The Times he had another reason to turn to art. The painting “literally keeps me healthy right now,” he said, adding that it helped him in his battles against drug and alcohol addiction.
“If you didn’t know who he was and saw him for the first time, I would think they were pretty interesting things. He has talent, ”New York art critic Anthony Haden-Guest told The Post.
The paintings feature pastel bursts of flowers and other shapes made with layers of alcoholic ink that blows with a metal straw on Japanese Yupo paper, a smooth synthetic material made from recycled paper.
The new Biden dealership, which opened its Soho gallery in 2015, has nothing to do with its New York and Berlin galleries, which are reportedly frequented by Spike Lee, Dave Chapelle and Susan Sarandon, as well as by to international industry titles.
“He looks like Woody Allen … He’s crazy in a good way,” an artist who has worked with Berges told The Post.
Berges, 44, regularly presents works by Chinese artists and told a Chinese network that he wanted to open other art galleries in Beijing and Shanghai in 2015. “The questions I’ve always had are how the world is changing. China the world in terms of art and culture? ”Berges told the China Daily in 2014.
Berges was accused of defrauding an investor in a 2016 federal lawsuit. Ingrid Arneberg claims she invested $ 500,000 in the Berges gallery for a promised expansion, but instead used the cash to pay old debts. Berges subsequently countered Arneberg and the case was resolved in 2018.
In 1998 he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and “terrorist threats”, which were dismissed. He declared there was “no contest” for the assault and received 36 months probation and served 90 days in prison, according to Santa Cruz Superior Court documents, the only publicly available information about the case.
Berges did not send several messages seeking comments. A worker at his Soho gallery told The Post that he knew nothing about Hunter Biden’s solo exhibition, which is scheduled for later this year, according to reports.
George Mesires, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, did not return calls from The Post.