Only a presidential pardon will save Devon Archer from jail and financial ruin.
Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner and best friend was sentenced Monday to one year and one day in federal prison by Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams over a scheme to defraud one of the poorest Native American tribes. He also was ordered to pay his share of $43 million in restitution to victims and more than $15 million in forfeiture.
It was the day Archer has been trying to avoid for six years, since he first was charged over the $60 million fraud in 2016. Judge Abrams set aside his 2018 jury conviction, but her decision was reversed on appeal and Archer failed to have his conviction overturned in the Supreme Court last year.
So Monday was the end of the legal line for Hunter’s charismatic Yale chum and former fellow board member of the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Judge Abrams said the crime was “too serious” for a non-custodial sentence, but cited COVID-19 as a reason for leniency because “conditions inside our prisons are extraordinarily difficult.”
Her sentence was less than half the 30 months requested by prosecutors, who wanted parity with his co-defendant Bevan Cooney.
Archer stood to read a statement expressing “deep remorse for the victims of the crime” and complained about “corrupt actors in the world and vicious media.”
He explained that at the time of the fraud he was “doing too many things at once . . . all the business deals I was involved with and the overseas activities. I’ve learned the lesson the hardest way possible.”
Archer’s overseas activities were intertwined with Hunter’s business, although the president’s son has not been connected to the Indian tribal fraud.
The pair met Russian oligarch Elena Baturina at Lake Como in 2014, weeks after she wired $3.5 million to a bank account associated with Archer.
Archer visited Joe Biden in the White House on April 16, 2014, a week before he joined the Burisma board, and posed for a photograph that would come to haunt the then-VP.
The photo was posted on the Burisma website the next day before it was removed at the request of Demetra Lambros, the VP’s Chief Counsel.
“Hey. Guys. There is apparently a photo of Devon and the VP on Burisma’s website,” wrote Hunter’s associate, Eric Schwerin, in an email found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.“
Demetra (VP Counsel) called and asked that we tell Burisma they need to take it down (legally they aren’t comfortable with the VP’s picture being up on the site as what seems like an endorsement).”
Archer’s slim, blonde wife, podiatrist Dr. Krista Archer, sat calmly at the back of courtroom 1506 in the Thurgood Marshall courthouse during the sentencing, surrounded by friends. Archer, who arrived at court in a $5,000 Brunello Cucinelli cashmere peacoat, has lost weight but also appeared relaxed after the verdict as he spoke to lawyers.
The government now can seize their property up to $15 million. The couple own a townhouse in Brooklyn and a house at Quogue, in the Hamptons, worth an estimated $8 million total. Prosecutors say they have additional investment assets worth “more than several million dollars.”
Hunter promised Archer in a 2019 text message that he is “part of a great family — not a sideshow, not deserted by them even in your darkest moments.”
Whether that vow includes a pardon from his father will be seen in the next 60 days before Archer has to surrender to authorities.
There is another way he could avoid jail — if he were to cooperate with prosecutors investigating Hunter’s business dealings, they could recommend he serve no time.
But only a pardon would clear his multi-million-dollar debt.
