His ex-partner Hunter Biden testified to the jury that the son of the American president was a heavy smoker crack “every 20 minutes or so” when they first met.

Biden is on trial in Wilmington, Delaware on charges related to possession of a firearm, as well as alleged drug use.

THE Zoe Kestanwho met Biden, 54, while dancing at a New York club, told the court he often withdrew cash for drug deals.

It is the first criminal trial for the son of a sitting US president, who could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of all three federal charges in the case.

“The day we met he started cracking within 10 minutes”

The first day they met at the club in December 2017, Hunter Biden’s ex-partner said she started smoking crack within 10 minutes and that she saw this pattern repeat itself during their relationship in luxury hotel rooms in New York. New Jersey and California.

Ms. Kestan also testified that she saw him smoking crack in Malibu, California, for several days in September 2018, a month before she bought the gun.

Prosecutors showed jurors pictures allegedly taken by Ms Kestan showing broken pipes in the rooms she shared with Hunter Biden.

On her part, Kathleen Bullwho was married to Biden between 1993 and 2017 and has three daughters with him, testified that she first learned of his drug use in 2015 after finding a crack pipe in an ashtray.

He also said he was “not himself” when he used drugs and would become “short-tempered”. At the end of their marriage, she testified that she “didn’t want to go to rehab.”

“I was definitely worried, I was scared,” she said.

First Lady Jill Biden went to court for the third day in a row to support Hunter ahead of her trip to France to meet with President Joe Biden, who is in Europe to mark the anniversary of the Normandy landings.

Hunter Biden has been charged with three felonies stemming from the purchase of a gun in October 2018. He is accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application that he was not a drug user and that he had illegally possessed the gun for 11 days.

As evidence of his drug use at the time of the purchase, prosecutors showed jurors dozens of pages from Hunter Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” written in 2021 after he became sober.

They also heard long audio excerpts from the book, which traces the origins of his addiction to the death of his brother Beau Biden in 2015 from cancer and covers the time he bought the gun, although it does not mention the gun specifically.