As federal prosecutors continue their criminal investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes and international business dealings, the president’s son – who commutes between Washington DC and a sprawling Hollywood Hills home – lies low, consults with attorneys, and focuses on his new career in art.
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 still has business interests in a billion-dollar Chinese investment firm, moved with his wife Melissa Cohen to the 2,000-square-foot home on a Los Angeles hilltop in January 2020, two months before the birth of their son.
The house is affiliated with Shane Khoh, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and real estate investor who is CEO of SXU Investment Holdings LLC, the California company that has owned the $ 3.8 million property since 2011, according to public records. According to his LinkedIn profile, Khoh, an American who speaks Chinese fluently, sits on the board of Siong Heng Realty Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based real estate holding company. He is also listed as a “venture partner” of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund, a private equity group with former Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on its board of advisers.
The house was featured in a New York Times profile of Biden last year as an emerging abstract painter. Last year, Khoh told The Washington Examiner that Biden was paying $ 12,000 a month for the property, which has a pool house that Biden turned into an art studio. Khoh denied any previous relationship with Biden to the newspaper.
But when The Post asked about his appointments with his tenant this week, Khoh slammed, “I have nothing to say about Hunter Biden. I have no response. “
Others in Biden’s job were even more restrained.
Calls to Lunden Alexis Roberts, an Arkansas stripper who sued Biden for paternity and child support after the birth of their 2-year-old daughter, declined comment, as did her attorney. It is not known how much Biden pays in child support for ‘Baby Doe’, as she is referred to in court documents. The father of five had initially argued that the child was not his and repeatedly tried to postpone the matter. Roberts, who met Biden at a Washington, DC strip club where she used to work, said in a December 2019 court that Biden had not provided financial support to the child.
Although Biden has divested many of his old business interests, he doesn’t seem to have a hard time for money. He has been seen driving across Los Angeles in a Porsche Panamera, which retails for over $ 90,000. He retains control of a limited liability company that has a 10 percent stake in BHR Partners, a Chinese private equity firm with $ 2 billion in assets and, according to reports, partially owned by the Bank of China.
Biden’s stake in the Chinese company is owned by Skaneateles LLC, a company named after his mother Neilia Hunter Biden’s hometown in New York State. 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 toddlers, were injured in the accident.
“It’s like a lottery ticket he has in hand with a 10 percent stake in a company worth billions,” said a source. “Imagine if that company is worth $ 2 billion, Biden takes home $ 200 million.”
Biden’s intricate international business dealings became a heated political issue in the closing months of the 2020 presidential campaign after The Post revealed a wealth of emails from Hunter’s laptop raising questions about then-candidate Joe Biden’s ties to the foreign business. his son’s businesses, including Burisma. The Ukrainian energy company is said to have paid Hunter $ 50,000 a month between 2014 and 2019 to sit on its board of directors. Hunter Biden is also accused of representing the interests of CEFC China Energy Co, a Chinese conglomerate that would pay him more than $ 10 million a year for introductions to officials in Washington.
Last year, a federal watchdog called on the Justice Department to initiate “a full investigation” into Hunter Biden, who they say was not registered under the rules of the federal Foreign Agent Registration Act that regulate lobbying for a foreign entity.
“Hunter Biden’s complex web of shell companies, LLCs, investment vehicles and option agreements makes it virtually impossible to know where he is getting income from,” said Thomas Anderson, director of the National Legal Policy Center, adding that bypassing FARA regulations Biden and his associates were allowed to operate under the radar.
Selling his abstract artworks to wealthy investors can also be a lucrative way to bring in money, Anderson said. “However, we strongly doubt that a career as an artist will do more than be a means of further protecting where that income comes from,” he said.
But Hunter Biden told The Times he had one more reason to turn to art. Painting “is literally keeping me sane right now,” he said, adding that it helped him in his battle against drug and alcohol addiction.
“If I didn’t know who it was and I saw it for the first time, I would find it quite interesting. He’s got 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 alcohol ink that he blows with a metal straw onto Japanese Yupo paper, a smooth synthetic material made from recycled paper.
Biden’s new dealer, who opened his Soho gallery in 2015, has closed lips on his New York and Berlin galleries, which are reportedly frequented by Spike Lee, Dave Chapelle and Susan Sarandon, as well as international titans of the industry.
“He’s got this Woody Allen look for him … He’s crazy in a good way,” an artist who worked with Berges told The Post.
Berges, 44, regularly exhibits works by Chinese artists and told a Chinese network that he would like to open other art galleries in Beijing and Shanghai in 2015. “The questions I always had were how China is changing the world in terms of art and culture. Berges told China Daily in 2014.
Berges was charged with defrauding an investor in a federal lawsuit in 2016. Ingrid Arneberg claims she invested $ 500,000 in Berges’ gallery for a promised expansion, but instead used the money to pay off old debts. Berges later opposed Arneberg and the case was settled in 2018.
In 1998 he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and making “terrorist threats” which were dismissed. He pleaded “no dispute” for the sexual assault and was given 36 months probation and served 90 days in prison, according to Santa Cruz Superior Court documents – the only information publicly available on the case.
Berges did not return multiple messages asking for comment. An employee at his gallery in Soho told The Post that he knew nothing about Hunter Biden’s solo show, which is slated for later this year, according to reports.
George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, did not answer The Post’s calls.