Edwards’ efforts to conceal affair described at trial
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The star prosecution witness in the corruption trial of former Sen. John Edwards on Tuesday testified about elaborate efforts by Edwards to try to conceal an extramarital affair from his family, his campaign staff and reporters.
In his second day on the stand, the witness, Andrew Young, a former campaign staff member, said he and Edwards had brainstormed about who might provide the necessary money to support Rielle Hunter, Edwards’ mistress and campaign videographer, after Edwards’ wife learned of the affair.
Young said he and Edwards knew they would have to come up with a lot of money — and for an extended period of time — given Hunter’s fondness for expensive items.
Eventually, Young said they settled on Rachel Mellon, a banking heiress. Mellon was game. She sent personal checks to Bryan Huffman, a friend, who would sign them over to Young. Young’s wife, Cheri, would then deposit the checks in the family account.
Throughout the period the Youngs were receiving the payments, Andrew Young said Edwards would remind him that Edwards was not supposed to know about the checks.
“He said he couldn’t know about any of this in case he had to be sworn in as attorney general,” Andrew Young testified.
By September 2007, reporters had discovered where Hunter was living, so Andrew Young — at the behest of Edwards — arranged to have her move into Young’s Chapel Hill, N.C., home.
Andrew Young, who has immunity from prosecution, is at the center of the government’s effort to prove that Edwards, a two-time presidential hopeful, clearly knew that nearly $1 million from Mellon and another wealthy donor were illegal campaign contributions and not, as he has claimed, aid from friends trying to help him hide an affair from his wife, Elizabeth Edwards. Elizabeth Edwards died in 2010 after a public battle with breast cancer.
The defense has countered that the payment was largely a scam by the Youngs to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mellon to build a house in Chapel Hill not far from the Edwards family estate.
The trial is expected to last six weeks. If he is convicted on all six counts, John Edwards, 58, faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.