The federal gun charge trial against Hunter Biden may captivate national attention, but its origins trace back to a local garbage can outside Janssen's Market, a well-known grocery store in Greenville, Delaware.

On Monday, at a courthouse in downtown Wilmington, Hunter Biden will become the first child of a sitting U.S. president to face a criminal trial.

The evidence will include testimony about how the gun at the center of the case ended up in a trash can outside Janssen's Market, located in Delaware's affluent Greenville area. Testimonies will come from a former Delaware State Police official who investigated the incident and from Biden's then-lover, the widow of his late brother, who disposed of the gun.

The trial will also feature testimony from employees of a gun store on U.S. 202 in Talleyville, Delaware. This shop is now under scrutiny from Hunter Biden's defense attorneys for allegedly committing a paperwork infraction similar to the one that led to Biden's charges.

The case began with a peculiar incident involving Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden at Janssen's Market in October 2018, an event that remained unnoticed by the public for years.

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How did Hunter Biden's gun end up in the garbage?

A Delaware State Police investigative report from 2018, included in court filings, details the investigation into the incident, along with interviews with Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden—the widow of Hunter's brother, the late Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. At the time of the Janssen's incident, Hallie Biden was Hunter Biden's lover.

The police report does not specify who called the State Police to the grocery store, but it seems from the redacted copy in the court documents that a store employee made the call. When officers arrived, they found Hallie Biden in the store's office. She explained that she had taken her children to school that morning, returned home, and searched Hunter Biden's vehicle, where she found the handgun in the center console.


She placed the gun in a bag, drove to Janssen's, and discarded the bag and the gun in the trash outside the store, she told officers. By the time she returned, Hunter Biden had left. She called him to confront him about the gun, and he became upset, urging her to drive back and retrieve it.

But when she returned, the gun was no longer in the trash. Nervous, she approached the store owner to confess. The officer noted that Hallie Biden "danced around" questions about why she searched Hunter Biden's car, later stating she thought he was "screwing around on me."

"She was kind of all over the place," the officer wrote.

In the presence of the officers, she called Hunter Biden and informed him that the officer wished to speak with him. He arrived half an hour later.

Hunter Biden told the officer he was in a relationship with Hallie Biden, sometimes stayed at her nearby home, but still lived in Washington D.C. He said he woke up at her home that morning, began driving to Washington D.C., noticed the gun was missing, and called Hallie Biden, who admitted to tossing it in the trash.

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Hunter Biden said he bought the gun for target practice but had not used it. The officer noted that when he mentioned Hallie Biden's lack of cooperation and asked if the gun had been involved in a crime, Hunter became very agitated, asking if the officer was intentionally trying to provoke him.

Biden also inquired whether he should call an attorney. The officer stressed that his main concern was finding the gun to ensure the safety of children, as A.I. du Pont High School is right across the street.


Attention then turned to who might have retrieved the gun from the trash.

Hunter Biden mentioned that Hallie Biden had seen a "homeless man" collecting cans and speculated he might have taken the gun. Store employees and officers also reported having noticed the man in the past.

The officer noted that two "Mexican males" wearing Janssen's Market shirts walked by, and Hunter Biden commented, "they have some shady people working at the market," referring to the men as "probably illegal.

Later, the officer inquired whether Hunter Biden had informed his father about the situation. Hunter replied, "I have never called my dad for anything." He also speculated that Hallie Biden searched his car because she was concerned he might harm himself.

Ultimately, the officers shifted their attention to locating the man known for scavenging through the grocery store's garbage.

How did officers locate Hunter Biden's gun?

Approximately a week later, officers managed to find the man with the assistance of a worker from another local store that the man visited regularly. They observed him spending about an hour searching through trash bins in the Greenville Crossing Shopping Center and approached him as he loaded the items into the back of his car.

He explained that he regularly collects recyclables to exchange for cash when he visits New York. The conversation then shifted to someone discarding something inappropriate in the trash recently.





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He then led officers to his home where he had hidden the gun in a sock inside a box. The officer noted that the man couldn't provide a reason why he hadn't reported the gun to the police but assured them he would notify authorities if he found another one in the trash.

Additionally, he handed over another gun to the officers, stating that a co-worker had given it to him many years ago. According to the police report, his co-worker indicated that the gun belonged to his brother, who was facing some sort of trouble and needed to dispose of the firearm.

The officer contacted Hunter Biden to inform him of the gun's retrieval and noted that Hunter Biden insisted there should be no prosecution in the case.

"The whole thing is just stupid," Hunter Biden remarked, as quoted by the officer.

Prosecutors from the Delaware Department of Justice were consulted and concluded that the case did not justify any form of criminal prosecution, as stated in the police report.

Alongside testimony from Hallie Biden, Millard Greer, a former state police officer who penned the conclusive investigative report on the incident, as documented in court records, is anticipated to testify. Subsequently, Greer has assumed a position as an investigator in the Delaware Department of Justice unit responsible for overseeing public corruption.

Was the Secret Service involved in the matter?

The incident was initially brought to light by the conservative news website The Blaze in 2020. Their report relied on information from anonymous law enforcement sources.

Politico further investigated the story and obtained a leaked copy of the Delaware State Police report, a document typically kept confidential by state officials and protected by Delaware's stringent public records law. Politico's coverage highlighted an intriguing development: both state police investigators and the Secret Service had contacted the Delaware gun shop regarding the paperwork completed by Hunter Biden during the gun purchase.

This raised eyebrows because Joe Biden was transitioning between his tenure as Vice President and his status as the Democratic nominee for president, meaning neither he nor his family were under Secret Service protection at the time, as reported by Politico.


In a recent interview with federal authorities, the owner of the gun shop reiterated that both the State Police and the Secret Service independently reached out to him shortly after Hunter Biden's gun had gone missing. He noted that they appeared unaware of each other's investigations. During the interview, the owner expressed discomfort with the request from the Secret Service, stating that it "didn't feel right," so he opted to provide the form only to State Police investigators at that time.

What prompted the involvement of the Brandywine Hundred gun store, StarQuest Shooters?

The trash can incident elucidates how federal investigators became aware of the gun purchase, but it's the purchase itself that has Hunter Biden facing potential decades in prison.

The firearm, a Colt .38 special revolver, was bought from StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply store on Concord Pike in October 2018, a few weeks before the Janssen's incident.

The store is owned by Ron Palimere, who has been cited in Delaware Online/The News Journal over the years regarding gun safety laws and doomsday preparation. Efforts to contact him through the store and his email proved futile.

Prosecutors plan to summon another employee of the store, Gordon Cleveland, to testify about the transaction involving Hunter Biden. Cleveland is expected to testify that he observed Hunter Biden completing what is known as ATF form 4473. According to prosecutors, Hunter Biden allegedly indicated on the form that he was not an unlawful user of or addicted to controlled substances.


Prosecutors argue that this statement is untrue and it forms the basis of two of the criminal charges against Hunter Biden.

In the meantime, Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden's chief defense attorney, indicated last week his intention to summon Palimere to the stand. The purpose would be to explore discrepancies between a copy of the ATF form sent to federal authorities shortly after the purchase and the original form that federal officials obtained three years later.

The more recent original, acquired by federal officials, featured additions such as "DE Vehicle Registration" written in a box designated for supplementary government-issued documentation. Allegedly, there were no alterations made to the specific section completed by Hunter Biden.

What prompted the editing of the form?

During a pretrial hearing earlier this month, Lowell pointed out the "altered" form, leading prosecutors and FBI agents to interview Palimere and provide a transcript in court documents aiming to exclude what they refer to as the "annotated" form from evidence.

Palimere informed agents that he also owned a consignment store adjacent to the gun shop. He believed he was summoned from there to the gun shop when employees identified Biden as a "celebrity-type customer.

He stayed in the rear of the store, and the salesman indicated that Biden preferred to use his passport for identification instead of a driver's license, which is customary. Passports usually do not include a person's home address, but Palmiere approved the use of the passport, as per the interview report.

"Palimere was aware of Biden's father not being a supporter of firearms, so he thought it would be detrimental to his business to have Hunter Biden seen in his store," the report mentions. "Palimere aimed to finalize the sale and usher Biden out of the store.

He mentioned that the well-known status of the "Biden family home" and his unfamiliarity with passport details led to incomplete information on the form. He did not handle the form for three years until a federal agent requested the original.

Upon being contacted, he reviewed the form, and another employee suggested it needed to be annotated.

"Palimere decided to write Delaware registration in the box," the interview summary states. "Palimere does not know why that was chosen but he knew it had to be an official document, and it was all they could think of."

It further states that Palimere informed authorities he doubted Hunter Biden actually presented his vehicle registration on the day of purchasing the gun. The interview report mentions that federal authorities permit forms to be annotated afterward, typically by calling the customer and requesting proof of residency documents.

"Palimere was hesitant to call Biden. He felt they couldn't have him visit the store," the report explains. "Moreover, Palimere didn't want to inform Biden of the need to visit the store as he was under investigation."

Lowell has endeavored to highlight the annotation as a component of Hunter Biden's defense.

In advocating for the inclusion of the edited form, he argued it reflects on the credibility of those attesting that Hunter Biden completed the form. Additionally, it is relevant to explore any benefits the witnesses received by prosecutors disregarding potentially inaccurate information they provided on the form.

Prosecutors, in opposition to admitting the edited form into evidence, contended it could confuse the jury, and alterations made to the form after the fact are irrelevant.

As of Friday, Presiding Judge Maryellen Norieka had not made a ruling on whether the annotated form would be allowed into evidence.