Hunter Biden trial: 'Politics never came into play,' juror says after guilty verdict

Jurors listened attentively to the testimony of Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, turning their chairs to face her as she recounted their monthslong relationship in 2017-2018 during his addiction.

Under questioning, she spoke of multiple-night hotel stays, trips to Atlantic City, and memories of night clubs, dinners, and drug dealers.

Evidence displayed by prosecutors during her testimony included highly personal photos she had taken during their relationship, including a photo of her and Hunter Biden in a bathtub together in California, with a crack pipe in his hand.

As Kestan testified, Hunter's current wife Melissa sat in the front row of the gallery, barely moving or reacting.

Sitting at the defense table, Hunter Biden at times rubbed his face or covered his mouth as Kestan recounted their time together and photos flashed across the screen in the courtroom.

"I felt a connection with him," Kestan told the jury.

Prosecutors called Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan to the stand, where she testified that she first met him at a Manhattan strip club in late 2017 and dated him for several months afterward.

Kestan bore witness to Hunter Biden's use of crack "every 20 minutes or so."

Kestan, who testified under subpoena and with an immunity agreement with prosecutors, recalled that Hunter Biden's demeanor didn't change after he used crack.

She described him as "cognizant and coherent."

"I remember thinking to myself that there was no change in his behavior," she said. "Nothing had changed, he was the same charming person."

Prosecutors showed jurors photos from Kestan's phone that showed crack pipes strewn about hotel rooms where they stayed.

On cross-examination by defense attorney Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden's ex-wife Kathleen Buhle testified that she never personally saw Hunter Biden using drugs.

"Did you ever see Hunter using drugs?" Lowell asked.

"No," Buhle replied.

Buhle's answer prompted prosecutors to ask Buhle what she saw "if [she] didn't' see him using drugs?"

"He told me when I found the pipe what it was ... and because he was acting not himself," Buhle said.

Lowell also asked Buhle about Hunter Biden's alcohol use, to which Buhle testified that he abused alcohol for many years.

"He went to rehab the first time in 2003," Buhle said.

Taking the stand as a prosecution witness, Hunter Biden's ex-wife Kathleen Buhle described how, after 25 years, their marriage deteriorated under the weight of his drug and alcohol addiction.

Buhle said she first learned of Hunter Biden's crack addiction when she discovered an empty crack pipe in an ash tray on their side porch the day after their anniversary in 2015. Hunter Biden was kicked out of the Navy in 2014 for testing positive for cocaine, and Buhle said ever since then she was "worried, scared" he would abuse drugs again.

When he was on crack, Buhle testified, "He was not himself … angry, short-tempered, acting in ways he wouldn't when he was sober."

She said she would find drug "remnants in little bags" and drug paraphernalia like "a broken crack pipe" -- often enough that she would search his car before allowing her daughters to use it.

In what could be a blow to one of Abbe Lowell's lines of defense, Buhle said Hunter Biden frequently interacted with friends and family, worked, and socialized while under the influence of crack cocaine -- and would often try to hide it from those close to him.

"Did you see him, for lack of a better word, function?" prosecutor Leo Wise asked.

"Yes," Buhle confirmed.