Supreme Court Denies Request From Former Hunter Biden Associate

Devon Archer (center), Hunter Biden's former business partner, leaves the O'Neill House Office Building after testifying to the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 31, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A former business associate of President Joe Biden’s son was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22.

Devon Archer, who was in business for years with Hunter Biden, saw his request to overturn his criminal conviction rejected.

Justices on the Supreme Court did not explain their decision, which was conveyed alongside other denials in a list issued by the court.

Lawyers for Mr. Archer and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which had asked the court to reject Mr. Archer’s request, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The ruling came after Mr. Archer told members of Congress about his time working with Mr. Biden, including how President Biden joined business meetings over the phone and met with associates of his son in Washington. Mr. Archer also said that Mr. Biden’s value to Burisma, a Ukrainian company, was the Biden family “brand.” The White House has denied wrongdoing while Mr. Biden has said his father was not “financially involved” with his business dealings.

Mr. Archer was convicted in June 2018 of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud. A jury convicted him after prosecutors showed he and others bilked a Native American tribe and pension funds out of tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Archer successfully got the conviction thrown out by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, appointed under President Barack Obama. Judge Abrams ruled that Mr. Archer “lacked the requisite intent and is thus innocent of the crimes charged in this indictment.”

A federal appeals court, though, overturned the ruling, finding that Judge Abrams abused her discretion in throwing out the conviction. The court said evidence, including emails showing Mr. Archer discussing progression of the fraud scheme, supported upholding the jury decision.

The Supreme Court in 2021 rejected a request from Mr. Archer to take up the matter.

In the new appeal, filed in October 2023, Mr. Archer’s lawyers said that a 2023 ruling in a separate case meant there was a split between circuit courts, or disagreement among different appeals courts, that should be settled by the Supreme Court.

The case implicated the authority of district courts to toss convictions and order new trials.

“Ten other circuits agree (to various degrees) that a district court must have some discretion to reweigh the evidence under Rule 33, while the Second Circuit now holds that the district courts have no such discretion,” the appeal stated. “The court should grant review to resolve this important and recurring question.”

Rule 33 enables courts to grant new trials “if the interests of justice so require.”

Mr. Archer’s representatives also said that Judge Abrams, while calculating guidelines for sentencing, “made a simple arithmetic error,” which resulted in a higher sentencing range. But the appeals court found that because Mr. Archer did not raise the issue in his opening or reply brief, he had “forfeited it.” Under previous rulings, though, “forfeiture alone is not a reason to refuse to consider a plain error,” Mr. Archer’s lawyers told the Supreme Court.

DOJ lawyers said that the court should again reject the bid to throw out the conviction.

“The court of appeals properly determined that, in this case, ’the evidence introduced at trial did not preponderate heavily against the jury’s verdict,'” they said.

Arguments for revisiting the guidelines should also be denied, the government lawyers wrote.

“Every court of appeals has recognized that it has the discretion to decline to consider an issue raised for the first time at oral argument. That rule ’makes excellent sense: It ensures that opposing parties will have notice of every issue in an appeal, and that neither they nor reviewing courts will incur needless costs from eleventh hour changes of course,'” they said, quoting from a decision in another case.

The sentence Mr. Archer did receive, one year and one day, was well below the guidelines range arrived at by Judge Abrams. The sentence also included the forfeiture of $15.7 million and the payment of $43.4 million in restitution.

Other Defendants

Some co-defendants in the case pleaded guilty, while Mr. Archer and two others went to trial. All three defendants who went to trial were convicted on all counts.

Jason Galanis, who authorities said orchestrated the scheme, was sentenced to 189 months in prison; John Galanis was sentenced to 10 years in prison; Gary Hirst was sentenced to 8 years; Bevan Cooney was sentenced to 30 months in prison; and Michelle Morton was sentenced to 15 months.

Hugh Dunkerley, the final defendant sentenced, was given in mid-2023 a sentence of time served and three years of supervised release.

Mr. Biden was not charged in the scheme, although emails uncovered by prosecutors showed that some of the defendants invoked his name at times.

Matthew Schwartz, a lawyer representing Mr. Archer, has claimed in the past that his client was “plainly kept in the dark” about much of the scheme. Mr. Archer also lost “a substantial amount of his own money” while receiving nothing from the plot, Mr. Schwartz said in court documents.