When CEFC executive Patrick Ho was arrested on bribery charges that year, contracts and wire transfers show he paid Hunter a $1million retainer to represent him.
Hunter even recounted once being presented with a 2.8 carat diamond by CEFC Energy China tycoon Ye Jianming – though he claimed he gave it to his associates and never saw it again.
UNDECLARED INCOME
Hunter sold his reported 10% stake in another Chinese venture, Bohai Harvest RST, late last year. The fund had $2billion under its management and experts estimated Hunter’s share at around $20million.
The enormous sums, if not fully or properly declared, would make prime targets for Delaware US attorney David Weiss in his potential tax prosecution of the First Son.
A 2017 email from Hunter’s business partner Eric Schwerin warns him that he needs to ‘amend’ his 2014 tax filing to reflect the thousands he received from Ukrainian gas firm Burisma.
‘In 2014 you joined the Burisma board and we still need to amend your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported Burisma income,’ Schwerin wrote.
‘That is approximately $400,000 extra so your income in 2014 was closer to $1,247,328.’
A November 2018 email from Hunter’s assistant lists $412,309.23 in unpaid tax bills.
That figure may have swelled considerably, as Hunter’s ‘sugar brother’ lawyer Kevin Morris reportedly paid off over $2million in Hunter’s tax bills this year.
Despite the millions of dollars Hunter earned, by 2019 he was claiming in court filings that he did not have enough money to pay child support to a former employee he impregnated then ghosted.
Lunden Roberts, 31, coached his daughter in basketball and worked at his firm, Rosemont Seneca. He at first denied her son was his, then when she sued him in Arkansas and a DNA test proved paternity, he said he had insufficient income to pay child support.
‘I am unemployed and have had no monthly income since May 2019,’ he wrote in a November 2019 affidavit in the case.
The First Son settled with Roberts two days before a hearing to decide whether he should be held in contempt for failing to produce financial records proving his alleged penury.
Hunter’s lawyers reacted with fury to the Washington Post’s Thursday story that quoted sources saying the feds had enough evidence to charge the First Son.
‘It is a federal felony for a federal agent to leak information about a Grand Jury investigation such as this one,’ attorney Chris Clark told the paper.
‘Any agent you cite as a source in your article apparently has committed such a felony. We expect the Department of Justice will diligently investigate and prosecute such bad actors.
‘As is proper and legally required, we believe the prosecutors in this case are diligently and thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense. That is the job of the prosecutors. They should not be pressured, rushed, or criticized for doing their job.’
