Hunter Biden wins $1.7m in suit over Iran bribery claim by ex-CEO of Overstock.com

A federal judge on Friday awarded Hunter Biden $1.7m in punitive damages in a defamation lawsuit he filed against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.Biden sued Byrne – a Donald Trump ally who denied the results of the 2020 election and funded efforts to overturn them – in 2023, accusing Byrne of lying in an interview that Biden had previously sought a bribe from Iran’s government in the fall of 2021.Joe Biden, Hunter’s father, was the US president at the time. And Byrne in an interview lied that Hunter Biden – in exchange for an $800m bribe – had offered Iran to go to his father, have him “unfreeze” $8bn in frozen Iranian assets and ensure that the US would “go easy” on Iran during “nuclear talks” between the two countries, according to Hunter Biden’s lawsuit.Biden alleged in the complaint that Byrne “made, published, and repeated false and defamatory statements knowing full well that the statements are false, for the purpose of subjecting plaintiff to harassment, intimidation, and harm”.In an order on Friday, the US district judge Stephen Wilson of California wrote that Byrne during the case had disputed that he made those statements with “actual malice”. And, Wilson wrote, Byrne had told the court that he believed the statements to be true because he had been told about the alleged bribery scheme by an Iranian government official.But Wilson – who was appointed to the federal judiciary during Ronald Reagan’s presidency – wrote that Byrne did not allege that the Iranian official had claimed to have had any direct contact with Biden, did not provide any evidence supporting his claims, and failed to “provide to this court, throughout the course of litigation, any documentary evidence that could allow a reasonable person to believe the story to be true”.The judge also said that over the course of the case, the court found “ample evidence” supporting a finding that Byrne “knew the story to be false, and much of the narrative describing the covert meeting with an Iranian government official was fabricated”.The case had been scheduled for a jury trial in October. But the judge wrote on Friday that Byrne “failed to appear” for the proceeding and fired his lead trial attorney, delaying the proceedings “at the expense” of Biden and the court.After his failure to appear at trial, Wilson found Byrne to be in default as a sanction for what the judge described as “repeated, intentional disobedience of court orders and unceasing efforts to delay proceedings”.The judge on Friday wrote that “the evidence is clear and convincing that defendant has engaged in intentional misrepresentation with conscious disregard towards plaintiff’s rights” – and he awarded Biden $1 in nominal damages along with $1.7m in punitive damages.Wilson judge also ordered Byrne to pay Biden about $35,000 in court sanctions.In a statement to the Guardian on Saturday, an attorney for Biden, Bryan Sullivan, said Byrne had effectively accused his client of “treason” – and now a judge had “found that every one of those claims was fabricated”.“The judgment is $1.7m in punitive damages, and it is the floor, not the ceiling, of what Mr Byrne owes for his conduct,” Sullivan added. “If Mr Byrne chooses to repeat any of it, we will be back in court.”Attorneys listed as representing Byrne did not immediately respond to comment from the Guardian on Saturday morning.The ruling in Hunter Biden’s favor on Friday came at a time when he has been building an online following through through social media posts covering topics such as politics, mental health and addiction recovery. He also announced that he will be publishing a series of essays on the Substack platform.It also came after his father, in the waning days of his presidency, issued him a pardon for convictions on federal gun and tax charges.