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

Hunter Biden, pictured in 2024, was accused of seeking an $800m bribe to unfreeze Iranian assests. Photograph: Eric Thayer/AP View image in fullscreen Hunter Biden, pictured in 2024, was accused of seeking an $800m bribe to unfreeze Iranian assests. Photograph: Eric Thayer/AP Hunter Biden wins $1.7m in suit over Iran bribery claim by ex-CEO of Overstock.com Biden sued Patrick Byrne for defamation over claim that he sought bribe to lobby his father to free $8bn in Iran assets 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 Frida