Hunter Biden has been directed to appear in an Arkansas court by Judge Holly Meyer, who is presiding over his continuing paternity case. The Independence County Circuit Court judge's ruling, issued on Monday, demands that all parties involved in the case be present on May 1, according to a court order obtained by PEOPLE.
The 53-year-old son of President Joe Biden and Lunden Roberts, a 32-year-old Arkansas woman, are both required to appear in court. Roberts is the mother of Navy Joan Roberts, the four-year-old child Hunter fathered in 2018.
Roberts filed a "motion for contempt" on April 21, alleging that Biden had withheld evidence and disregarded previous court decisions throughout their paternity disagreement, which began in May 2019. Despite his initial denials, a ruling in November 2019 confirmed that Biden was indeed the child's father.
In January 2020, Hunter agreed to pay Roberts an undisclosed sum in child support, including retroactive payments dating back to November 2018.
Roberts' April motion, however, accused Biden of "playing games" with the court and urged authorities to "incarcerate" or "sanction" the president's son if he failed to produce additional evidence requested by the court.
Her attorneys also pointed out that Biden had "never appeared" in court since Roberts initiated her paternity and child support lawsuit.
The contempt motion reflects a previous filing made by Roberts prior to the January 2020 settlement. In both motions for contempt, her lawyers claimed that Biden had refused to provide necessary discovery materials as ordered by the judge.
Hunter Biden is also the father of four other children. He has three daughters, Naomi (29), Finnegan (23), and Maisy (22), with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, and a son, Beau Jr. (3), with current wife Melissa Cohen.
Hunter secretly married South African native Cohen in 2019 after a brief romance. The couple welcomed their first child together in 2020.
The name of their child was revealed ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021 when officials announced that a "Beau Biden" would accompany the Biden family as they traveled to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration ceremony.
