Hunter Biden used drugs ‘every 20 minutes,’ became ‘angry, short-tempered’ on crack, exes say

WILMINGTON, Del. — Hunter Biden’s former wife told jurors in the first son’s federal gun trial Wednesday that her ex-husband “was not himself” when he used crack cocaine but was still able to function, while a former girlfriend described President Biden’s son as a regular-seeming addict who used the drug “every 20 minutes.”

The testimony from Kathleen Buhle and Zoe Kestan undercut arguments from Hunter’s side that he couldn’t have been in the throes of a drug relapse when he bought a .38-caliber revolver on Oct. 12, 2018, because he was acting too put-together.

Buhle — who was married to the younger Biden from 1993 through 2017 and was on the witness stand for roughly 25 minutes — recalled the first time she realized Hunter used the addictive street drug. 

“I found a crack pipe on July 3, 2015,” Buhle said of the discovery in their Washington, DC, residence, “in an ashtray on the side porch of our home.”

“I went looking for my husband and asked him what it was,” added Buhle, who wore dark glasses and a tan suit. “He said it was a crack pipe. He acknowledged smoking crack.”

Buhle said she believed Hunter had been on drugs before that time, since the Biden scion had been kicked out of the Navy the year before after testing positive for cocaine.

“I was worried, scared,” she said. “He was not himself. He was angry, short-tempered, acting in ways he hadn’t when he was sober.”

Buhle — who shares three daughters with Hunter — said she started regularly checking the family car for drugs and drug paraphernalia so their children wouldn’t find any evidence of their father’s abuse or run afoul of the law if pulled over by police. 

She kept up the routine from 2015 through 2019, months after their divorce had been finalized, and said she found drugs in the vehicle more than once.

Buhle said that throughout Hunter’s addiction, he was able to work and interact with friends and family.

But there were times, she added, when she could tell he was high when others didn’t notice, and she said he tried to hide his problem from friends and family. 

Buhle also recalled that Hunter drank and used drugs at the same time.

Kestan — a Brooklyn native known for her social media handle “weed_slut_420” and who testified under the promise of immunity — explained that she met Hunter in December 2017 at a Manhattan gentlemen’s club where she worked part-time.

While Kestan and another woman put on a private dance for Hunter for 30 minutes, she recalled, the first son opened a sliding door to the private room and smoked crack through it.

At the time, Kestan noted, she was 24 and Hunter was 48.

Hunter and Kestan met up again in January 2018 at the Soho Grand Hotel in Manhattan, where they spent five days together and where, in her words, Hunter smoked crack “every 20 minutes or so.”

Kestan said she was a “distraction” for Hunter and claimed she helped to slightly curb his regular use, though she still remembered seeing Biden clean out his crack pipe with chopsticks or a disassembled pen — as well as buying a “ping-pong ball”-size amount of the drug at a Four Seasons hotel from a dealer named Frankie.

She also noted that Hunter “used cash for a lot of things. I know a good amount of it was for buying drugs.”

Through his Wells Fargo bank account, Hunter could generate a one-time code that allowed others to withdraw money, Kestan explained. Hunter once gave her a code, and she testified to seeing him give a code to his dealer in California.

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Despite defense attorney Abbe Lowell’s claim the day before that “there is no such thing as high-functioning crack addicts,” Kestan remarked on Hunter’s ability to act normal while high.

“I thought to myself, ‘It’s crazy his demeanor doesn’t seem to be changing,’” Kestan said. “I never saw an immediate change in his behavior, which really confused me.”

Despite Hunter’s apparent normalcy, Kestan said, she’d seen him lose or break his phone five or six times in their nine months together.

During one stay at the Four Seasons during New York Fashion Week in February 2018, Hunter spoke about getting clean using a South American treatment called Kambo, in which venom from the Amazon-based giant leaf frog is rubbed on the skin in a bid to cure cravings.

Kestan had been hopeful that the controversial treatment would work, but she testified that Hunter was still using at their next meet-up in early March.

Hunter attempted to get clean once more at the end of their relationship in November 2018. He was receiving ketamine therapy on Plum Island, Mass., but Kestan said he was still getting high and asked her to help him score coke.

Acquiescing, Kestan reconnected with old college friends from the Rhode Island School of Design and the duo traveled to the Ocean State on Nov. 19, 2018. While there, Kestan gave Hunter a tour of the Providence campus, which one of the Biden daughters was considering attending.

That was the last time they saw each other, Kestan said, though Hunter sent her a lengthy text message a couple of weeks later saying: “I’m sitting here on a f–king island by myself trying to beat the devil out of me … I will always be an addict.”

The final witness of the day was Gordon Cleveland, the salesman at StarQuest Shooters & Survival in Wilmington, where Hunter bought his gun.

Prosecutor Derek Hines opened a red case that held the revolver Hunter purchased — showing it to Cleveland before presenting it to the jury in the style of the game show “Deal or No Deal.” The jurors were also shown the ammunition that the Biden son bought.

Cleveland recalled Hunter pulling up to the store in his father’s black Cadillac CTS. When Lowell asked Cleveland how he remembered the specific make and model, the witness responded: “I like guns and I like cars.”

During opening arguments Tuesday, Lowell painted Cleveland as a “whale hunter” who sweet-talked Hunter into buying the gun. 

Cleveland laughed at the phrase and acknowledged, “that’s what they call me,” referring to his co-workers. 

But the witness refuted the defense contention he was a pushy salesman by saying he didn’t make commission and preferred to sell better quality items — things he would want to buy himself — so customers wouldn’t return unhappy.

“I was making the same pay regardless of whether anyone bought anything or not,” Cleveland emphasized.

Hines and Cleveland then walked jurors through the application form that Hunter had to fill out in order to buy the gun. Cleveland said that he and another employee, Jason Turner, helped the first son — but was emphatic that he watched the younger Biden check “no” in response to a question asking if he was illegally using drugs.

Countering Lowell’s suggestion that the form had been tampered with after Hunter turned it in, Cleveland noted that certain parts of the paperwork were meant to be filled in by the seller.

Cleveland is due to continue testifying Thursday morning. Prosecutors still have six more witnesses to call — including Hallie Biden, Hunter’s former lover and the widow of his late brother Beau. 

On his way out of court, Hunter — holding papers and a copy of his memoir “Beautiful Things” — jokingly mumbled to wife Melissa Cohen Biden: “I’m doing my own paperwork. I’m taking the case myself.”