Ashley Biden Tape: VP's Daughter Allegedly Doing Cocaine In Videotape Hawked By Friend, Reports NY Post
A "friend" of Vice President Joseph Biden's daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware.
The anonymous male acquaintance of Ashley took the video, said Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer representing the seller.
Dunlap and a man claiming to be a lawyer showed The Post about 90 seconds of 43-minute tape, saying it was legally obtained and that Ashley was aware she was being filmed. The Post refused to pay for the video.
The video, which the shooter initially hoped to sell for $2 million before scaling back his price to $400,000, shows a 20-something woman with light skin and long brown hair taking a red straw from her mouth, bending over a desk, inserting the straw into her nostril and snorting lines of white powder.
She then stands up and begins talking with other people in the room. A young man looks on from behind her, facing the camera. The lawyers said he was Ashley's boyfriend of a few years.
The camera follows the woman from a few feet away, focusing on her as she moves around the room. It appears not to be concealed. At one point she shouts, "Shut the f--- up!"
The woman appears to resemble Ashley Biden, 27, a social worker for a Delaware child-welfare agency and a visible presence during her father's campaign for the White House.
The dialogue is difficult to discern, but the woman makes repeated references to the drugs, said the lawyers, who said they viewed the tape about 15 times.
"At one point she pretty much complains that the line isn't big enough," said the second lawyer, who declined to identify himself. "And she talks about her dad."
Biden has been an outspoken crusader against drugs, coining the term "drug czar" in 1982 while campaigning for a more forceful "war on drugs."
The lawyers declined to name the person who shot the video, but said he knew Ashley well and had attended other parties with her at which there were illegal drugs.
The lawyers said the shooter used a camera with a hard-disc drive that he later destroyed, drilling into the device and tossing it into a lake.
The woman in the video acknowledges the camera in a way that makes it clear she knows she's being recorded, the lawyers said, waving at it during a part of the video not shown to The Post.
No one else in the video is seen using the drugs. The portion of the tape shown to The Post ends shortly after the woman's alleged ingestion.
The shooter claims that he previously tape-recorded Ashley at a party in August, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to sell that video, they said.
An American media company offered $250,000 for the footage and access to the person who shot the tape, according to the lawyers.
Another company, based overseas, offered $225,000, they said.
The unnamed lawyer hinted that his client had additional information that could embarrass the vice president's daughter.
"The higher the price, the more he'll reveal," said the lawyer.
The lawyers said the video shooter was afraid of being identified and prosecuted for his role in the alleged drug use.
"He's got a criminal-defense attorney," said Dunlap, who has offices in Virginia and the District of Columbia.
The other lawyer said Ashley didn't have Secret Service protection at the time of the party because she complained about agents blocking her driveway.
"She complained to her dad about it and he got rid of them," he said.
This isn't the first brush with scandal for Ashley, who was arrested in 2002 when she yelled at a cop trying to arrest her disorderly friend outside a Chicago club, according to published report.
She was charged with obstructing, but the rap was later dropped after she apologized.
Ashley is the youngest of three siblings, and the only one born to the vice president and his second wife, Jill. Joe Biden's first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, died in a 1972 car crash. Her two half-brothers are Beau, 40, and Hunter, 39.
Phone messages left at the offices of Vice President Biden and Jill Biden, who were in Chile last night for meetings with South American leaders on economic issues, were not immediately returned.
Ashley also did not respond to messages left at her Delaware home.
Source : http://www.nypost.com/seven/03282009/news/nationalnews/friend_of_bidens_daughter_shopping_tape__161772.htm
Some Friend! Ashley Biden's Cocaine Video Scandal
By Keith Girard
Vice President Joe Biden, Ashley Biden
Better pick your friends carefully. Ashley Biden, the daughter of Vice President Joe Biden is reportedly the latest celebrity to be betrayed by a “friend” who is trying to hawk a video that purportedly shows the comely 27-year-old snorting cocaine and acting raucously at a party.
The incident follows closely on the heels of a photo that recently blazed across the Internet showing Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps taking hit from a marijuana bong. UK singer Amy Winehouse and Twilight actress Kristen Stewart have also been captured on film or video using drugs.
The episode involving Biden is particularly ironic because of the relatively high profile role she played in her father’s campaign as running-mate to President Barack Obama. Biden has been a particularly strident opponent of drug use and particularly cocaine use. In this case, The New York Post reports that a lawyer representing the owner of the video approached the newspaper seeking $2 million for the file, which is reported to be more than 40 minutes long.
The Post reported that it was shown about 90 seconds of the video, but in the end declined to purchase it, even after the price had been reduced to $400,000.
High-five Post owner Rupert Murdoch for passing on the tape. It’s an odds on bet that he was consulted about it, before the post declined the offer. The Post, like most other newspapers, must been cash poor because of the intense media recession, or Murdoch has finally developed at least some measure of a conscience.
As a younger man, Murdoch bought and published diaries that were claimed to have been written by Adolph Hitler. But the writings later proved to be a faked, and Murdoch became an international laughing stock.
This is where reports diverge. In a breathless dispatch, Radaronline reported in a “worldwide exclusive” that it, too, was aware of the Ashley Biden tape.. But The Post had a far more details and the two reports conflicted on key points.
For example, The Post said the woman in the video, who is not conclusively identified as Biden, used a red straw to short the cocaine; the online magazine said it was a dollar bill. Details, details!
The drug user was described by the tabloid as a “20-something woman with light skin and long brown hair.” She took “ a red straw from her mouth, bending over a desk, inserting the straw into her nostril and snorting lines of white powder.”
Radar, its print publication already a victim of the recession, reports that a man in the video hands the woman a rolled-up dollar bill. “She proceeds to walk a few steps to a table where the cocaine is cut. She pulls her hair back, bends down and snorts a line,” it says.
Like the Post, the online magazine stops short of positively indentifying the woman. It says the tape was made without her knowledge, and is being shopped for $250,000. The Post about said it was told that the tape was legally obtained, and that the woman was aware she was being filmed.
There is also some question as to when the video tape was made. Radar reported that the tape was shot this year, but other reports say Biden was 21 when it was made, which would make it six years old. If true, that would certainly lessen the impact of the “scandal.” The technology used to make the video as described by the Post sounds more 2003 than 2009.
If the tape is indeed of Ashley Biden, there is also some question as to whether this “scandal” rises to the same level as, say, the infamous Michael Phelps bong hit. Phelps is internationally known for his historic gold medal performance at the Olympics. H is undeniably a public role model and was being paid handsomely to pitch a number of high-profile products, including Wheaties.
Biden is a social worker in Delaware, where the scene was allegedly filmed, and would seem to have a much stronger claim to privacy. A high public official with wayward children is hardly a new story. The Bush twins had their own embarrassing moments with drunkenness in public, although no allegations of drug use was ever made.
Even ex-President Bush admitted to heavy drinking and drug use in college and continued drinking heavily up until his 40s. And, don’t even ask about the Kennedys.
Meanwhile, celebrities too numerous to mention have been caught on camera or video using drugs or in public displays of drunkenness. UK singer Winehouse was videotaped last year openly snorting drugs in a London night club. And Twilight star Stewart was photographed sitting on the steps of a building, taking a hit on a marijuana pipe, shortly after the cult vampire film vaulted her to notoriety.
If the tape does make it to light – reportedly overseas publications have offered as much as $250,000 for it – it is unlikely, in the end, to affect the White House or the Vice President. His position on drugs is abundantly clear.
Ashley was arrested for possessing pot marijuana while she was a college student in 1999. And in 2002, about the time some reports say the video was shot, she was arrested for obstructing a Chicago police officer outside a Chicago bar.
So, she definitely has wild-child credentials. But what the Vice President’s adult daughter does with her time, even if it is stupid, embarrassing and ultimately regrettable, is her own business.
Source : http://www.theimproper.com/Template_Article.aspx?IssueId=12&ArticleId=3368
