Left: Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com and an ally of former President Donald Trump, takes a break from being questioned by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks, in Washington, Friday, July 15, 2022 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite). Right: FILE – Hunter Biden departs from federal court June 11, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum).
Hunter Biden is one step closer to winning a defamation lawsuit by default against Overstock”s former CEO after a federal judge slapped Patrick Byrne with monetary sanctions to cover Biden attorneys’ travel costs and ordered the plaintiff to file a motion that could end the case.
Biden attorney Bryan Sullivan confirmed to Law&Crime that U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson’s sanctions order on Monday amounts to recompense to the plaintiff’s legal team for having to show up for trial at the end of July, only to see the California federal proceeding derailed in “three-ring circus” fashion after Byrne suddenly fired his lawyers and failed to convince the judge to grant attorney Stefanie Lambert pro hac vice permission to represent him instead.
In a sanctions motion from late August, Biden’s attorneys asked Wilson to put Byrne on the hook for $34,969.20 in hotel, flight, meal, and Uber ride costs that were all for naught given the “bad faith conduct” that led the trial to be pushed back by several months.
In late July, Wilson, a Ronald Reagan appointee going back to 1985, declined to issue a default judgment then and there in Biden’s favor, opting instead to reschedule trial for Oct. 14 to give Byrne time to find new counsel.
But as Law&Crime reported two weeks ago, Lambert — a Michigan lawyer who was indicted for allegedly trying to tamper with voting machines used in the 2020 election and was previously disqualified from representing Byrne in a Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for “relentless misconduct” — and Peter Ticktin — one of the attorneys sanctioned in Donald Trump’s failed RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton — asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a writ of mandamus directing Wilson to grant their pro hac vice applications. A three-judge panel on Sept. 25 refused to stay the lawsuit, and stated that Lambert and Ticktin “have not demonstrated a clear and indisputable right to the extraordinary remedy of mandamus.”
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That means Byrne is still officially without counsel in the lawsuit case — and at a time when Biden’s legal team has complained about violations of the court’s orders, requested a bench warrant to secure Byrne’s in-person presence in court so he can “defend (or confess) the case on the merits,” and signaled its intent to file a motion for a default judgment that would bring the lawsuit to an end.
Sullivan, noting that the bench warrant request has not been denied and is therefore still pending in Wilson’s court, told Law&Crime on Tuesday that the sanctions issued against Byrne were “solely for the costs incurred in connection with having the trial team attend the July 29, 2025 trial date that was continued due to Defendant’s misconduct.” The attorney further explained that the judge ordered Biden’s team to file a default judgment motion.
“As to the default judgment, the Court almost defaulted Defendant due to his misconduct at the July 29, 2025 trial date, but elected to grant Plaintiff additional discovery into Defendant’s net worth/financial condition,” Sullivan said in an email. “Since then the Defendant has ignored Court orders and failed to meaningfully engage in the proceedings so the Court ordered us to file a motion for default judgment. We will be filing that motion.”
Lambert and Ticktin had argued that Wilson’s refusal to allow Byrne his “counsel of choice” on the case amounted to “a severe violation of his constitutional rights” and “a textbook example of abuse of process” on Biden’s part, which they said supported a writ of mandamus. Following the denial of mandamus, the attorneys notified the 9th Circuit on Tuesday that they are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court as Biden’s bench warrant request looms:
On September 29, 2025, attorneys for Robert Hunter Biden appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking an ex parte bench warrant for the arrest of Patrick Byrne.
This is a civil case for defamation, brought by Plaintiff Robert Hunter Biden. In other words, as the Complainant, it was Biden’s burden and challenge to serve the Defendant with Notice and Service of Process in the first instance to begin the lawsuit. If Biden did not know how to serve Byrne, then this civil case would never have gotten started by service of process. The attempt to use contempt to force Byrne to bear Biden’s burden to serve him after Biden removed Byrne’s attorneys is abusive and conducted in bad faith.
Now, Biden’s attorneys want to have Byrne arrested to provide a telephone number and address for his lawyer, and Byrne’s plans for how Biden can sue him at trial, even though Biden’s attorneys caused the problem by asking for Byrne’s attorneys to be removed from the case.
Law&Crime sought comment from Lambert and Ticktin, but did not immediately receive a response.
Former President Joe Biden’s son first filed the defamation lawsuit in late 2023, claiming that Byrne defamed him when making false accusations about committing “despicable and treasonous crimes” involving bribery and Iran. Biden alleged that Byrne was “told that his allegations are false” and that a retraction demand was made, but the defendant “doubled down” in a subsequent post linking the plaintiff and his “purported crimes” to the “horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel.”
