Wife of Edwards Aide to Continue Testimony By LIZETTE ALVAREZ Published: May 1, 2012
GREENSBORO, N.C. — One day after her testimony was cut short by a migraine headache, Cheri Young, the wife of a former aide to John Edwards, is expected to return to the witness stand on Tuesday morning and then face cross-examination in Mr. Edwards's federal corruption trial. Ms. Young, who was by turns tearful, incredulous and angry as she testified on Monday, explained to jurors how she was reluctantly drawn into an intricate web of deceit in an effort to help Mr. Edwards in his quest for the presidency.
Weeping on the witness stand, Ms. Young, whose husband, Andrew Young, is the star witness against Mr. Edwards, recounted to the jury the moment in 2007 when she was asked to allow her husband to falsely claim he was the father of a baby that Mr. Edwards had conceived with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. The Youngs had been helping to cover up Mr. Edwards's and Ms. Hunter's extramarital affair.
"My first thought was, ‘How in the world could Mr. Edwards ask one more thing of me, of us?’ ” said Ms. Young, a pediatric oncology nurse and the mother of three young children. “I was mad. I was upset, of course. I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ I screamed at him, cursed at him.”
Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and two-time Democratic presidential candidate, later pressed her in a telephone call to come “on board,” offering a pep talk, Ms Young testified: “This is it! This is our time!” Mr. Edwards, she said, told her that it was “good for America.”
If Ms. Young went along, he said, it would be a “one-day story.”
He also said he did not want his wife, Elizabeth, to know about the affair “because she was going to die soon.” Ms. Edwards died of breast cancer in December 2010.
Ms. Young agreed, saying that she believed there was no other way to protect Mr. Edwards’s presidential bid and her husband’s career.
“I didn’t want the campaign to explode and for it to be my fault,” she said. “I ultimately decided to live with a lie.”
By the end of the day, Ms. Young’s testimony about her complicity in the scandal and the stress of the cover-up on her family proved too much. She complained of a migraine headache and was dismissed midafternoon.
In the course of her testimony, Ms. Young led the jury through her “journey,” as it was later characterized, to cover up the affair. Mr. Edwards’s defense team has contended that the Youngs benefited financially from an arrangement that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into their bank account to help silence Ms. Hunter and indulge her plush lifestyle.
But in telling her story, Ms. Young painted a picture of hardship, a family turned upside down for more than a year in the service of Mr. Edwards. After shuttling around the country with Ms. Hunter, moving to California, uprooting their children and enduring Ms. Hunter’s moody temperament, she said, the Youngs were told to get jobs and never move back to North Carolina. By that point, Mr. Edwards had stopped returning their calls.
Ms. Hunter’s baby was born in February 2008, and Ms. Young said the stress of their thrown-together living arrangement became almost unbearable. Ms. Hunter, infuriated that Mr. Edwards did not call enough, kept threatening to go public, Ms. Young said. But Mr. Edwards was now a contender for the vice presidency.
When Ms. Young insisted on returning to North Carolina, a warning was issued by the wife of Fred Baron, the wealthy Texas donor who paid for the private jets and swank hotel rooms for the Youngs and Ms. Hunter:
“Mrs. Edwards is not well,” said the wife, Lisa Blue, according to Ms. Young. “I am a doctor. She is not mentally healthy, and there is a great chance she would be a harm to you or your family.”
Mr. Edwards subsequently called the Youngs, she said, leaving a seemingly carefree message.
“Hey Buddy, how are you?” it began. “Long time no see.”
It had been more than a year since Ms. Young said she first agreed to endorse the checks from another wealthy donor, Rachel Mellon, and deposit them into her own account to pay for Ms. Hunter’s needs. Fearing it was illegal, she did so only after Mr. Edwards reassured her it was not, she said.
The checks are a crucial element in the charge that Mr. Edwards violated federal election laws in accepting them. Government prosecutors contend that about $900,000 received from two donors amounted to illegal campaign donations; Mr. Edwards, who faces 30 years in prison, says the money was a personal gift from friends.
“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,” Ms. Young told the court. “ ‘Get the money in!’ He was very short and very angry.” |
