Hunter Biden will undergo a seven-hour psychological evaluation to prove he was ’emotionally damaged’ by disgraced Overstock CEO’s Iran claim
Hunter Biden will undergo a psychological evaluation lasting up to seven hours next month, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
The thorough mental health examination is part of his defamation lawsuit against 61-year-old former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne.
In a joint submission Hunter met with Byrne’s lawyers on September 17 and agreed to a series of psychological tests to determine whether he was emotionally damaged by Byrne’s corruption allegations.
Hunter, 54, sued the former CEO last year in a Los Angeles federal court, alleging that Byrne falsely accused him of soliciting bribes from Iran.
Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen leave court after his guilty plea in his tax evasion trial in Los Angeles on September 5
Byrne posted a message on the social media site X, which he had alerted his then 290,000 followers to, claiming that Hunter had contacted the Iranian government and offered his father Joe Biden to “unfreeze” $8 billion of their funds in exchange for an $800 million bribe.
‘These defamatory statements by Byrne are not only false and not only malicious – they are utterly outrageous,’ Hunter’s November 2023 complaint said, adding that the allegations were “complete nonsense.”
Byrne is a Trump supporter and has promoted the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election and has made negative claims about Covid-19 vaccines.
According to Hunter’s lawyers, Byrne did not retract his bribery allegations when told they were false, but rather repeated and republished them.
A Sept. 17 filing in the case stated that Hunter was “seeking damages for emotional distress in connection with his defamation claim.” He agreed to the investigation to prove this.
Hunter films himself smoking ‘drugs’ and touching himself in a sensory deprivation tank – during a detox program funded by his father, President Joe Biden, in January 2019
Patrick Byrne, the disgraced former CEO of Overstock.com, is being sued by Unter over allegations he solicited bribes from Iran. Byrne left the company after admitting to a romance with Russian agent Maria Butina
Hunter’s mental examination is scheduled for October 11 and will be conducted by Dr. Nathan Lavid in Long Beach, California.
“The parties hereby agree that the defense may conduct a single mental examination of the plaintiff,” the joint legal notice states.
‘No one will accompany the claimant to the interrogation room. The interrogation will be limited to seven hours of face-to-face interview time and psychological testing.’
According to the filing, Lavid will use “diagnostic testing, including but not limited to a clinical interview with the plaintiff and a testing period during which Dr. Lavid will administer a variety of standardized written tests.”
Byrne stepped down as CEO of retail company Overstock in 2019 after its stock price fell following his cryptic comments about the “deep state.”
In August of that year, he also admitted in a letter to investors that he had had a romance with Maria Butina, a Russian agent who was later jailed for illegal influence peddling.
Hunter Biden is caught by a court sketch artist during his federal hearing in Los Angeles, where he pleads guilty to federal tax charges
Hunter’s mental examination is scheduled for October 11 and will be conducted by Dr. Nathan Lavid in Long Beach, California
Hunter’s lawsuit against Byrne is one of several civil cases the First Son remains embroiled in after he was found guilty twice this year in federal gun and tax crimes cases he faced.
He is suing the IRS, alleging that he improperly released his personal information. However, whistleblowers who led the agency’s criminal investigation into tax evader First Son said they provided the information to Congress through proper legal channels.
Hunter has also sued Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House aide Garrett Ziegler, alleging they hacked his data using his abandoned laptop.
But he may have to file his lawsuit from prison in just a few months, as his sentencing hearings are set for December.
He will be sentenced on December 4 in Delaware for his weapons offenses and on December 16 in Los Angeles for his tax offenses, for which he faces a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison.
His father has promised that he will not pardon him or commute his sentence.