Photo: Getty
Wow.
By Rebecca Jane Stokes — Written on Oct 30, 2020
Another day, another Hunter Biden scandal.
Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's son, was accused by a woman named Lunden Alexis Roberts of being the father of her newly born child.
According to recent court papers, Biden has been confirmed as the father of Roberts' child.
Now, a new report claims that Hunter Biden allegedly paid Lunden Roberts $2.5 million in a paternity settlement case, even though he claimed he was "broke" at the time.
Who is Hunter Biden's baby mama, Lunden Roberts?
Read on to find out what you need to know about Lunden Roberts and the paternity case involving Hunter Biden.
Lunden Roberts filed a suit against Hunter Biden.
On May 28th, a woman in Independence County, Arkansas filed a suit in her local court. The woman in question was 28-year-old Lunden Alexis Roberts, and she was claiming that Hunter Biden was the father of her child and that, as such, he owed child support.
Did we mention that this lawsuit came just days after Hunter married his second wife? Because it totally did. What a bummer of a wedding gift.
In the lawsuit, Roberts claims that she and Biden were in a relationship when this baby was conceived. According to the lawsuit, the baby was born in August 2018.
What does she want from Hunter Biden?
Roberts wasn't looking to drag Hunter's family name through the mud.
If anything, what she wanted from Hunter was the same thing most women would request from the man who gets them pregnant: that he legally establish that he is this baby's father, and that he pays the child support required to keep their child happy and healthy.
But that's not all she wanted.
She went above and beyond for her little one, even though it put her in a spotlight.
Roberts wanted Biden to provide health insurance for their child and for Biden to agree to splitting all health care expenses evenly. She also wanted Biden to cover her legal fees.
Roberts only speaks through her lawyer.
For all her demands and for getting involved with such a famous family, Roberts did her best not to speak to the press, instead directing all requests for comment that come her way to her lawyer, who then just as swiftly refused to comment on the lawsuit itself or even on Roberts' ties to her ex, Biden.
“She really values her privacy,” Clint Lancaster, Roberts' attorney, said.
"This is a parenting and child support issue between her and Mr. Biden," he added.
"She really does not want this to be a media spectacle. She does not want this to affect Joe Biden’s campaign. She just wants this baby to get financial support from the baby’s father."
Roberts asked Biden to take a paternity test.
Hunter Biden agreed to taking a DNA test, which has established him as the father of Roberts' child.
Hunter Biden is not a man with a pristine past. When the Ashley Madison website leak took place, he was revealed to be a client listed as looking for extramarital affairs. This contributed to the end of his first marriage. He was also discharged from the U.S. Naval Reserve in 2014 when he tested positive for cocaine use during a routine drug test.
Initially, Biden didn't respond to inquiries regarding the suit and wouldn't even respond to Roberts or his attorney himself.
“We have been in contact with Hunter Biden’s attorney. We have attempted to work with Hunter and his attorney to settle this issue but that has not been successful. We are attempting to serve Mr. Biden,” said Clint Lancaster at the time.
However, Biden eventually agreed to take a DNA test to confirm the paternity of the child, according to court documents that Roberts filed in November 2019. The results of the test verified Biden as the baby's father.
Judge Holly Meyer said that DNA testing confirmed the paternity “near scientific certainty.” A new birth certificate will be issued where Hunter will be named the father.
Roberts requested further information regarding Biden's finances in order to help with child support.
And on January 7, 2020, an Arkansas judge ruled that Hunter Biden is the legal father of the unnamed 17-month-old child.
Biden has since agreed to pay the 13 months of missed installments of child support and then continue to pay child support. He also is going to pay all their attorney and fees and court costs.
In the state of Arkansas, defendants like Biden need to be served with a copy of the lawsuit against them and a summons to appear in court within 120 days of when the suit was first filed, though sometimes judges do make exceptions.
Even though Biden doesn't live in Arkansas, that didn't affect how the court ruled in terms of his paternity of this child.
But it could mean that the child support details need to be settled out of state, a potential hiccup for Roberts.
“If he’s never stepped foot in the state of Arkansas, if he has no connection to the state of Arkansas, then child support actually has to be decided in whatever state he lives in,” said Lancaster.
Lunden Roberts asked Biden to reveal information about how much money he was making at a Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma.
In court documents filed by Roberts on December 9, 2019, she asked Biden to divulge the amount of money he made when he was working with a Ukrainian energy firm named Burisma. From April 2014 to April 2019, Biden was on Burisma's board of directors.
He was being paid as much as $50,000 per month.
In addition, the same documents asked for Biden to acknowledge that he had accepted money from China for investment reasons, either domestic or foreign.
Biden's attorney denied Roberts' request for financial help with attorney and court fees.
Roberts' request for over $11,000 in attorney-related costs was denied by Biden. Doc McSpadden, the judge who oversaw the case before recusing himself on New Year's Eve, revealed his concerns over both parties not providing enough financial information to the court, and he also expressed that his main concern was Biden and Roberts' child.
On December 3, 2019, McSpadden wrote in a letter, “It concerns me that the only information supplied to the Court so far concerning employment of either party has been unemployment or underemployment.
My major and main if not only concern is this child. Hopefully the parties will see fit to look out for the interest of this child.”
Hunter Biden reportedly paid Lunden Roberts $2.5 million to settle the case.
Private investigator Dominic Casey, who helped Lunden and her attorney, said that he had seen documents related to the settlement.
“D&A Investigations, Inc. (Fla) has confirmed they facilitated the Hunter Biden-Lunden Alexis Roberts Paternity Settlement of $2.5 mil. ‘Broke’ Hunter Biden then resolved his $450k tax lien,” Casey alleged.
Lunden Robert's attorney, Clinton Lancaster, didn't confirm nor deny the report, only saying, “I will confirm that Ms. Roberts and her child are both happy and healthy.”
Biden has accused Roberts of releasing his personal address.
Before the judge's ruling, Biden accused Roberts of including his personal address in her court filings "intentionally" so the "media and his political adversaries" had the information of his residence. Biden alleges that this information led to "an onslaught of harassment" to him and Melissa Cohen, his current wife.
Roberts shot back, however, revealing that Biden had plenty of time to set up a P.O. box.
Added her attorneys, Biden "should not make speculative, disreputable, and offensive allegations about the motives of [Roberts] simply because her attorneys followed the long established, written rules governing civil actions in Arkansas."
Who are Hunter Biden's children?
Hunter Biden has three children already with his first wife, Kathleen Buhle. Upon the DNA test results, he also fathered a child with Lunden Roberts.
His wife, Melissa Cohen, gave birth to their son — his fifth child — in 2020.
Before marrying Cohen in May 2019, just weeks earlier, he split from Hallie Biden, his late brother Beau Biden's widow. He dated Hallie while still legally married to Buhle.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cats, Batman and Margot. She's an experienced generalist with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, pop culture, and true crime.