The federal judge who will soon decide Hunter Biden’s fate following Tuesday’s conviction recently handed down a tougher-than-expected prison sentence in a similar firearms case.
On May 2, Judge Maryellen Noreika sentenced the defendant, Zhi Dong, to one year in prison, double the term sought by the prosecution.
Dong pleaded guilty to providing a false address on government documents and making false statements when purchasing firearms when purchasing more than a dozen guns in Delaware in 2020.
Meanwhile, President Biden’s son was convicted on three counts of lying about drug use to buy a gun.
Although Don claimed to be living in Delaware, details of the case show that he actually lived in Maryland with his wife and daughter. First reported by Politico.
Prosecutors noted in a sentencing memo that the father of one later admitted to driving the firearms to California and delivering them to a gun store, actions that were “indicative of firearm trafficking.”
The Justice Department noted that Dong was not “the brains behind the operation” and, acknowledging that this was Noreika’s first offense, sought a six-month prison sentence for Dong.
Noreika instead chose to lock him up for a year.
The details of the case emerged amid growing speculation about how severely Judge Noreika intends to punish Hunter Biden after jurors found him guilty of making false statements regarding a firearm purchase, making false statements regarding information required to be kept by federally licensed firearms dealers, and possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance.
The judge has not yet decided when he will sentence Biden, but noted shortly after the verdict was read that sentencing hearings are often set about four months after a guilty plea.
The eldest son faces up to 25 years in prison but, like the defendant in last month’s case, is likely to face a lighter sentence given he has no criminal record.
The judge was appointed to the bench in 2018 by former President Donald Trump, the Biden family’s biggest political foe.
However, she was nominated for the bench by two Democratic senators.
Prior to his appointment as a federal judge, Noreika presided over criminal cases and served as a presiding judge in the courts.
Noreika, who spent 25 years at the Delaware law firm Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, spent much of his early career litigating federal civil intellectual property cases.
