Hunter Biden arrives at Arkansas court to face baby mama Lunden Roberts

Hunter Biden came face to face with his Arkansas baby mama today as his lawyers rejected the notion he was a deadbeat dad and revealed the president’s son has contributed $750,000 towards the child’s upbringing.

Abbe Lowell, Hunter’s hotshot DC lawyer, suggested it was the time the world knew how much his client was shelling out for Navy Joan Roberts, the four-year-old daughter he has never bothered to meet.

‘Mr. Biden is paying the plaintiff $20,000 a month,’ Lowell told the two-hour hearing in Independence County, Arkansas. He later put the total figure at $750,000.

Hunter, 53, glanced occasionally at Roberts, 32, as they sat across the court from one another. Roberts, supported by her parents and sister, did not look back at him.

Neither was called on to speak as the court worked through a list of procedural matters before setting a June date for both parents to sit for depositions ahead of a July trial.

Hunter Biden is facing off with Lunden Roberts in Arkansas court over custody payments for his four-year-old lovechild Navy Joan

Roberts, 32, was the first to arrive Monday, wearing a smart blue blazer, black pants and dark sunglasses, jumping out of a black SUV and dashing up the court steps without commenting 

Navy Joan was born in August 2018 but she remained a secret until Roberts sued Hunter for child support in her native Arkansas 10 months later

Navy Joan was born in August 2018 but she remained a secret until Roberts sued Hunter for child support in her native Arkansas 10 months later

Hunter pulled into the court’s staff entrance in a five-car motorcade with a police escort this morning. He hopped out of a silver SUV and headed inside at 8.45am, stopping briefly to shake someone’s hand in the entrance way.

The First Son, wearing a smart navy suit, white shirt and a black tie, did not make any comment. 

The long-running paternity suit between the president’s son and Roberts seemed to have been resolved in 2019 when a DNA test proved Hunter had fathered little Navy Joan Roberts and he agreed to a reported $2.5 million settlement.

But the recovering drug addict abruptly reopened the case in September by claiming he had suffered ‘a substantial material change’ in his income and couldn’t afford the payments.

Roberts refused to buckle and raised the stakes by petitioning the court to officially rename her daughter Navy Joan Biden to ‘benefit from carrying the Biden Family name,’ a move Hunter dismissed as ‘political warfare.’ 

Roberts also served the First Son with a sprawling discovery request covering everything from his shady business dealings in Ukraine and China to the names of the mystery art lovers who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his beginner abstract paintings. 

After Hunter blew through multiple deadlines to turn over his documents, Judge Holly Meyer ordered him to appear at Independence County Circuit Court in person for today’s contempt hearing.

Roberts, 32, was the first to arrive Monday, wearing a smart blue blazer, black pants and dark sunglasses, jumping out of a black SUV and dashing up the court steps without commenting.

The hearing happened amid tight security, with all corners of the courthouse flanked by deputies and police bomb-sniffing dogs seen sweeping for threats.

Hunter hopped out of a silver SUV and headed inside at 8.45am, stopping briefly to shake someone's hand in the entrance way

Hunter hopped out of a silver SUV and headed inside at 8.45am, stopping briefly to shake someone’s hand in the entrance way

The First Son pulled into the court's staff entrance in a five-car motorcade with a police escort and did not make any comment

The First Son pulled into the court’s staff entrance in a five-car motorcade with a police escort and did not make any comment

The First Son, wearing a smart navy suit, white shirt and a black tie, did not make any comment

The First Son, wearing a smart navy suit, white shirt and a black tie, did not make any comment

The First Son, wearing a smart navy suit, white shirt and a black tie, did not make any comment

Roberts also wants to change her daughter's last name to Biden to benefit from carrying the president's family name

Roberts also wants to change her daughter’s last name to Biden to benefit from carrying the president’s family name

Roberts lit the touch paper on today’s hearing by accusing the Biden scion of hiding assets and posing as a ‘destitute’ artist in her latest court filing.

She wants to know how Hunter can plead poverty while deploying a stable of super lawyers charging up to $855 per hour across his various lawsuits and congressional probes.

The feisty single mom, who studied crime scene investigation at George Washington University, has even called for Hunter to be slung in the county jail – and left there until he coughs up his records.

Her attorney Clinton Lancaster says slashing the childcare payments would be ‘inappropriate and unjust’ and wants Hunter – who spent last week at Democrat donor’s Joe Kiani $50 California vineyard – to pay more if he’s caught concealing his true wealth.

To add insult to injury, Roberts has retained Garrett Ziegler – a former Trump administration staffer and longtime Hunter nemesis who produced a 644-page analysis on the contents on his notorious abandoned laptop – as an expert witness.

Roberts argues that Hunter Biden, the father of her four-year-old daughter Navy, has plenty of money to make his child support payments

Roberts argues that Hunter Biden, the father of her four-year-old daughter Navy, has plenty of money to make his child support payments

Hunter fathered a son he named Beau after his late brother with his new wife Melissa Cohen just 17 months after Navy was born

Hunter fathered a son he named Beau after his late brother with his new wife Melissa Cohen just 17 months after Navy was born

In his own filings, Hunter has opposed Navy Joan becoming a Biden, insisting he wants a ‘peaceful existence’ for her, free of the political scrutiny associated with his family dynasty.

The angelic, blonde-haired girl was born in August 2018 but remained a secret until Roberts sued Hunter for child support in her native Arkansas.

She is the fourth of Hunter’s five children but neither he, nor his parents Joe and Jill Biden, have ever met the child or publicly acknowledged her existence.

Hunter claimed during the original 10-month paternity case that he was ‘unemployed and had no monthly income’ despite living in a $12,000-per-month Hollywood rental and driving a Porsche.

But when a judge ordered him to produce financial records he repeatedly failed to do so and instead settled out of court, the two sides announcing a ‘global, final settlement of all issues’.

It was initially reported that Hunter met Roberts while she worked as a stripper at a DC club which Hunter frequented.

But texts retrieved from his abandoned laptop proved that she was in fact on the payroll at Rosemont Seneca, Hunter’s Washington, D.C. investment firm.

Roberts served the First Son with a sprawling discovery request covering everything from his shady business dealings in Ukraine and China to the names of the mystery art lovers who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his beginner abstract paintings

Roberts served the First Son with a sprawling discovery request covering everything from his shady business dealings in Ukraine and China to the names of the mystery art lovers who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his beginner abstract paintings

Hunter has never seen Navy Joan and could not pick her out of a photo lineup, according to court filings

Hunter has never seen Navy Joan and could not pick her out of a photo lineup, according to court filings 

She and Hunter conceived Navy Joan around December 2017 while he was still in a relationship with his brother Beau’s widow, Hallie.

Hunter claimed in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, that he went on such a ‘rampage’ in the wake of his 2017 divorce from Kathleen Buhle that he couldn’t remember the names of the women he bedded.

‘It’s why I would later challenge in court the woman from Arkansas who had a baby in 2018 and claimed the child was mine – I had no recollection of our encounter. That’s how little connection I had with anyone,’ he wrote.

Hunter has never seen Navy Joan and could not pick her out of a photo lineup, according to court filings.

Navy Joan has never met her grandpa Joe, 80, despite the President fawning over his six other grandkids and frequently bringing them along for events and speeches.

And she gets none of the perks, nor the round-the-clock Secret Service protection, enjoyed by the rest of the Biden brood.

In February 2022 Roberts gave evidence to a Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter for alleged tax crimes, joining a growing list of former business partners and associates who have been drawn into the Department of Justice’s secretive probe.

Federal prosecutors were particularly interested in what she learned about Hunter’s finances, her attorney said at the time.

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