NEW YORK CITY – On July 12, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang ordered Hunter Biden’s former partner Devon Archer to produce nine years of records about Biden and others to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wang denied a request Archer filed on June 24, to stay discovery in the commission’s civil fraud suit against him.
She set a Sept. 16 deadline.
The commission sued Archer and others in 2016, at the same time the Department of Justice brought criminal fraud charges against them.
The civil suits stalled while the criminal case unfolded.
Jurors convicted Archer and others in 2018, and Wang ordered Archer to produce documents to the commission about 52 individuals and entities.
Nine days later District Judge Ronnie Abrams vacated Archer’s conviction and granted a second trial.
Wang put the stay back in place.
Second Circuit appellate judges reinstated the conviction in 2020, and ordered Abrams to sentence Archer.
This February, she sentenced him for a year.
He appealed his conviction and his sentence but that didn’t keep the stay in place.
The SEC asked Wang to lift it and she lifted it in April.
Archer didn’t comply and when the SEC brought it to Wang’s attention, his counsel Matthew Schwartz sent a letter asking her to put the stay back in place.
He argued that the documents weren’t going anywhere.
On July 1, SEC counsel Nancy Brown responded that the rest of the letter “puts the validity of that premise in serious question.”
“Although Archer’s letter discusses his financial debts at length, he neglects to advise the court that he is currently employed,” she wrote.
She claimed he and his family split time between a Brooklyn townhouse and a house in the Hamptons.
She claimed his housekeeper answered the door to a process server.
Archer works for Jeffrey Cooper of Edwardsville, circling the globe to make deals as he did with Biden.
Abrams let him travel abroad dozens of times for business and pleasure while presiding over his criminal case.