Heroin Hiding Hunter Biden laying low in LA, starting art career with shady dealer

[Bradley K. Sherman]

In article <t2h8qk$3ke3j$4...@news.freedyn.de>
"Buttsniffer Number P01369" <patr...@protonmail.com> wrote:

As federal prosecutors continue their criminal probes into
Hunter Biden’s taxes and international business dealings, the
President’s son — shuttling between Washington DC and a
sprawling Hollywood Hills home — is lying low, consulting with
lawyers and focusing on his new career in art.

Biden, who turns 51 next week, is prepping a solo show 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 billion-
dollar Chinese investment firm, moved into the 2,000-square foot
hilltop Los Angeles home with his wife Melissa Cohen in January
2020, two months before the birth of their baby boy.

The home is connected to 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. Khoh, an American who is fluent in Chinese, sits on the
board of Siong Heng Realty Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based real
estate holding company, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is
also listed as a “venture partner” of Diverse Communities Impact
Fund, a private-equity group that features former Democratic New
Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on its board of advisors.

The house was featured in a New York Times profile of Biden as
an emerging abstract painter last year. Last year Khoh told The
Washington Examiner that Biden was paying $12,000 a month for
the property, which features a pool house that Biden has turned
into an art studio. Khoh denied any prior relationship with
Biden to the newspaper.

But when The Post asked this week about his arrangements with
his tenant, Khoh clammed up: “I have nothing to say about Hunter
Biden. I have no comment.”

Others in Biden’s orbit were even more reticent.

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, refused comment, as did her lawyer. It is not
known how much Biden is paying in child support for “Baby Doe,”
as she is referred to in court papers. 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 Washington,
DC, strip club where she used to work, said in a December 2019
court filing that Biden had not provided any financial support
for the child.

Although Biden has divested himself of many of his old business
interests, he does not seem to be hard up for cash. He has been
seen driving around Los Angeles in a Porsche Panamera, which
retails for more than $90,000. He retains control of a limited
liability corporation that has a 10 percent stake in BHR
Partners, a Chinese private-equity firm with $2 billion in
assets and partly owned by the Bank of China, according to
reports.

Biden’s stake in the Chinese firm is owned by Skaneateles LLC, a
company named for his mother Neilia Hunter Biden’s upstate New
York hometown. The company has used the Hollywood Hills home as
one of its addresses. Neilia, Joe Biden’s first wife, died in a
1972 car crash 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 his hand with a 10 percent
stake in a company worth billions,” said a source. “Just imagine
if that company is worth $2 billion, Biden takes home $200
million.”

Biden’s convoluted international business dealings became a
heated political issue in the final months of the 2020
presidential campaign after The Post revealed a trove of emails
from Hunter’s laptop that raised questions about then-candidate
Joe Biden’s ties to his son’s foreign business ventures,
including Burisma. The Ukrainian energy company reportedly paid
Hunter $50,000 a month between 2014 and 2019 to sit on its board
of directors. Hunter Biden is also accused of promoting the
interests of CEFC China Energy Co, a Chinese conglomerate that
was to pay him more than $10 million a year for introductions to
officials in Washington.

Last year, a federal watchdog called on the Department of
Justice to launch “a full investigation” of Hunter Biden, who
they claim did not register under federal Foreign Agent
Registration Act rules that govern those lobbying for a foreign
entity.

“Hunter Biden’s tangled web of shell companies, LLCs, investment
vehicles, and options agreements make it virtually impossible to
know where he is getting income from,” said Thomas Anderson,
director for the National Legal Policy Center, adding that
circumventing the FARA regulations allowed Biden and his
associates to operate under the radar.

Selling his abstract artwork to wealthy investors may also be a
lucrative way to rake in cash, Anderson said. “We highly doubt,
however, a career as an artist will do anything more than act as
a vehicle to further shield where that income is coming from,”
he said.

But Hunter Biden told The Times he had another reason for
turning to art. Painting is “literally keeping me sane right
now,” he said, adding that it helped him in his battles with
addiction to drugs and alcohol.

“If I didn’t know who it was and I saw it for the first time, I
would think it was pretty interesting stuff. 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 metallic
straw onto Japanese Yupo paper, a smooth synthetic material made
from recycled paper.

Biden’s new dealer, who opened his Soho gallery in 2015, is
tight-lipped about his galleries in New York and Berlin, which
are reportedly frequented by Spike Lee, Dave Chapelle and Susan
Sarandon as well as international titans of industry.

“He’s got this Woody Allen look to him … He’s crazy in a good
way,” one artist who’s worked with Berges told The Post.

Berges, 44, regularly features works by Chinese artists and told
a Chinese network that he was keen to open other art galleries
in Beijing and Shanghai in 2015. “The questions that I always
had was how’s China changing 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 Berges’
gallery for a promised expansion, but instead he used the cash
to pay off old debts. Berges later countersued 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 pled “no
contest” to the assault and received 36 months probation and
served 90 days in jail, according to Santa Cruz Superior Court
documents — the only information publicly available about the
case.

Berges did not return several messages seeking comment. A worker
at his gallery in Soho told The Post he didn’t know anything
about Hunter Biden’s solo exhibition, which is scheduled for
later this year, according to reports.

George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden did not return The
Post’s calls.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/30/hunter-biden-now-laying-low-in-la-
focusing-on-a-new-art-career/