Wife of Ex-Aide Resumes Testimony in Edwards Trial By LIZETTE ALVAREZ Published: April 30, 2012
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The wife of a former top aide to John Edwards testified at his federal corruption trial Monday that she had been reluctantly drawn into a web of deceit that she thought was necessary to maintain Mr. Edwards's chances of being elected president. Cheri Young, the wife of Andrew Young, the former aide and star witness against Mr. Edwards, was by turns tearful, angry and defiant as she spoke in detail about her complicity in trying to keep Mr. Edwards's mistress, Rielle Hunter, out of public view.
Among the tasks she said she was assigned in the cover-up was to deposit checks that sometimes reached six figures. The checks, which came from a pair of wealthy Edwards campaign donors and were used to pay for Ms. Hunter's living expenses, are a crucial element of the charges against Mr. Edwards.
He is accused of six counts of violating federal election finance laws during his 2008 presidential bid while trying to conceal his affair with Ms. Hunter, a campaign videographer. Government prosecutors contend that some $900,000 received from the two donors amounted to illegal campaign donations; Mr. Edwards says the money was a personal gift from friends.
If convicted, Mr. Edwards faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine.
Mrs. Young said Monday that she had refused at first to deposit the checks unless she was told by Mr. Edwards himself that doing so was not a crime.
"I heard John Edwards tell me on the phone that he checked with the campaign lawyers and this was not a campaign donation and it was not illegal," Mrs. Young told the court. "'Get the money in!' He was very short and very angry."
Mrs. Young said that over time she had come to play a more extensive role in trying to cover up the affair, and that Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter had had a child together, even going along with Mr. Edwards's idea that Mr. Young claim publicly that he was the child's father -- out of fear of derailing Mr. Edwards' 2008 presidential bid.
Mrs. Young said that during one conversation, which included her, her husband, Ms. Hunter and Mr. Edwards, Mr. Edwards tried "to get everybody on board."
" 'This is it! This is our time!' We're doing great!' " she said Mr. Edwards told them.
Mrs. Young said that Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and two-time Democratic presidential candidate, had said that if Mr. Young took public responsibility for the child, it would be "a one-day story."
"Nobody cares if two campaign staffers had an affair," Mr. Edwards said, according to Mrs. Young.
She said Mr. Edwards told the group that he did not want his wife, Elizabeth, to know about the affair "because she was going to die soon." Elizabeth Edwards died of breast cancer in 2010.
Mrs. Young said she had refused to go along when her husband first mentioned the scheme to her at a McDonald's restaurant in North Carolina.
"He told me that Mr. Edwards asked him to take responsibility for the baby," she said, as she broke down in tears, forcing jurors to be removed briefly from the court room. "My first thought was, 'How in the world could Mr. Edwards ask one more thing of me, of us?' I was mad. I was upset, of course. I said, 'Absolutely not.' I screamed at him, cursed at him."
Eventually, however, she agreed to save Mr. Edwards's campaign and protect her husband's job, she said.
William Dupre contributed reporting from Greensboro, and Timothy Williams from New York. |
