Hunter Biden Wins Bid To Drop Laptop Hacking Lawsuit After Claiming He’s ‘Millions In Debt’ – But Judge Rules He Can’t Bring Case Again

Alessio AtriaMarch 15, 2025, 2:51 pmNews >

Hunter Biden won his bid to drop his laptop hacking lawsuit after asserting he was having money problems, but a judge ruled he could not bring the case again.

On September 13, 2023, Hunter filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s legal aide, Garrett Ziegler, for alleged use of private materials retrieved from Biden’s personal laptop.

This lawsuit states that Ziegler, his company, Marco Polo, and ten others had violated computer fraud and data access laws.

It said that the legal aide and those named in the lawsuit “have, to at least some extent, accessed, tampered with, manipulated, altered, copied and damaged Plaintiff’s data and that their actions are illegal, unauthorized, and without Plaintiff’s consent.”

The hard drive Ziegler allegedly copied was stolen from Hunter’s personal laptop, which was left at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. After years of unclear answers as to whether or not the laptop was his, Hunter admitted early in 2023 that it, in fact, belonged to him.

>MORE: HUNTER BIDEN SUES FOX NEWS FOR PUBLISHING EXPLICIT IMAGES OF HIM

On March 5, Hunter’s lawyers requested a judge allow him to drop the case, saying he “has significant debt in the millions of dollars range.”

The lawsuit also mentioned that he “suffered a significant downturn in his income over the past 18 months with reduced book and art sales, which has been his main source of income over the prior years.

Hunter’s lawyers declared that he needs to “focus his time and resources dealing with his relocation, the damage he has incurred due to the fires, and paying for his family’s living expenses as opposed to this litigation.”

Ziegler tried to prevent the case from being dismissed because he hoped to pursue legal fees from the former president’s son.

On Thursday, three days after the day Hunter was set to be deposed, California Federal Judge Hernán Vera of California partially granted his request to drop his legal battle against the legal aide.

Even though Vera agreed to close the case, the judge still rejected Hunter’s attempt to keep things open-ended, denying him the possibility of ever filing it again.

According to the judge, since Ziegler’s lawyers already handed over papers they planned to file, such as their main defense, he would be unfairly penalized if Hunter were to refile the suit.

Vera stated that the legal aide’s motion “gives [Hunter] a roadmap to [Ziegler’s] most important legal arguments and provides prejudicial advantage given that [Biden] has not yet had to file an opposition.”

He also noted that if he let Hunter bring the case again, then it “would give him additional time to prepare for deposition with the information gleaned from [Ziegler’s] recent briefing.”