Aiexpress – Hunter Biden received a payment of $1 million from Chinese company CEFC to serve as the attorney for their employee, Dr. Patrick Ho. However, Dr. Ho is now threatening to sue Hunter Biden unless he returns the money within seven days. Dr. Ho argues that Hunter did not provide any legal services for him.
Last week, Ho sent a legal letter to Hunter, requesting an immediate termination of their attorney-client agreement. In the letter, he also threatened legal action unless he receives a detailed list of services provided by Hunter, as well as reimbursement for the unused funds, as stated in the 2017 contract.
In a letter sent by Hong Kong law firm Huen & Partners to Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell in Washington, DC, Ho sets a deadline of seven days for the repayment of any remaining funds.
According to a friend of Ho’s who spoke to The Post, Patrick claims to have paid Hunter and alleges that Hunter never fulfilled his end of the agreement. Patrick asserts that, based on the terms of their contract, he is entitled to a reimbursement of the money he paid.
In Hunter Biden’s California tax indictment, it was revealed that a $1 million legal retainer was transferred from CEFC in China to CEFC’s Hong Kong HSBC account. Subsequently, on November 2, 2017, the funds were wired to the American bank account of Hudson West III (HWIII), a firm co-owned by Hunter and CEFC. From there, the money was then transferred to Hunter’s private firm, Owasco.
Upon arrival in New York on November 18, 2017, Ho found himself arrested immediately after disembarking the plane from Hong Kong.
In 2019, the former Hong Kong Home Affairs secretary was found guilty of paying bribes to the presidents of Chad and Uganda. As a result, he was sentenced to three years in prison and subsequently deported to Hong Kong.
According to Ho, Hunter, who is 54 years old, received the $1 million payment without providing any legal services. The only action he took was making a phone call to another attorney named Edward Kim and arriving thirty minutes late for a meeting with Ho and Kim at the Manhattan Correctional Center the day after Ho’s arrest.
Hunter never came to see Ho, 74, while he was in jail, Ho has sworn to his friends.
Hunter does not appear as an attorney on record for the Patrick Ho case in the Southern District of New York.
During his unsuccessful plea hearing on July 26, 2023, Hunter testified under oath before Delaware district judge Maryellen Noreika. He stated that he had received a million dollar payment, which he claimed was for legal fees related to Patrick Ho, through his own law firm.
Noreika inquired for further clarification, asking, “Did the payment originate from the law firm?”
Hunter handed the document to the judge, saying, “Your Honor, this was received from Patrick Ho.”
Noreika asked, “Mr. Ho himself?”
Hunter responded with a simple, yet affirmative, “Yes.”
Noreika asked, “Apart from the law firm, were you performing any legal work for him?”
Hunter: “Yes, Your Honor. Well –.”
Chris Clark, Hunter’s lawyer, intervened at this point, sensing danger. He clarified, “Mr. Biden was engaged as an attorney, but it wasn’t through Boise Schiller, Your Honor.”
Noreika inquired further, “You were doing work for him?”
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Hunter: “I have my own law firm, but I don’t work as counsel.”
Noreika asked, “Did you also have your own law firm?”
Hunter believes that Owasco PT operated as a law firm entity.
According to a friend, Ho, who has been following Hunter’s progress from Hong Kong, was “baffled” by Hunter’s comments to Noreika. He was saddled with a huge legal fee for Kim’s representation, which he had to cover out of his own pocket.
Hunter’s attorney engagement agreement, which he signed on September 18, 2017, was located on his abandoned laptop and obtained by IRS inspector Joe Ziegler via an electronic email search request to Google.
Last year, Ziegler testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that the $1 million payment was not for legal costs and that the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office had erred in the statement of facts. The DOJ is still investigating the ultimate purpose.
Ho’s letter was sent days after the president’s brother, Jim Biden, testified to the impeachment inquiry about telling the FBI that CEFC chairman Ye Jianming was a “protege” of China’s President Xi Jinping, a statement that was not well received in Beijing, according to Ho’s friend, who said Xi and Ye have “no relations.”
Ye was arrested in China in February 2018 on President Xi’s direct orders, according to Chinese news agency Caixin. He hasn’t been heard from since.
Since 1997, Hong Kong has been a Special Administrative Region of China, and Beijing has increased its influence over the territory.
CEFC paid Hunter a total of $7.2 million from March 2017 to March 2018. In February 2017, Chairman Ye also gave Hunter a 3.16-carat diamond with a grading report describing it as a “round brilliant” of Grade F with prime “VS2” clarity and “excellent” cut. Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen’s divorce lawyer also claimed that the diamond was worth $80,000. Hunter’s laptop displays photographs of the magnificent stone and a grading report.
Hunter told the impeachment inquiry last week that he presented the diamond to his uncle, Jim Biden. Jim stated that he “threw it in the trash.” Jim also testified that Hunter received another diamond or diamond “ring” on behalf of CEFC in 2015 or 2016 from a fellow father of a student at Washington’s exclusive Sidwell Friends School.
The Ho-Hunter attorney engagement agreement said that “the attorney will perform the legal services called for under this agreement, keep the client informed of progress and developments, and respond promptly to the client’s inquiries and communications.”
Legal services included “conferences, court sessions, deposition preparation and participation, correspondence and legal document assessment and preparation, legal research, and telephone calls…
“If, at the conclusion of this agreement, the total amount of attorney fees and costs is less than that of the retainer sum, the remaining amount will be reimbursed to the client.”
Ziegler testified that CEFC’s Mervyn Yan forwarded Ho’s letter to Hunter, Jim Biden, and Jim’s wife Sara on October 10, 2017. Jim stated that he “didn’t know” whether Hunter represented Ho.
Ho oversaw CEFC’s nonprofit division, a think tank also known as CEFC, which received “special consultative status” from the UN.
