* Testimony opened second week of campaign finance trial
* Edwards faces possible prison time
By Colleen Jenkins
GREENSBORO, N.C., April 30 (Reuters) – The wife of the
campaign aide who claimed paternity for former presidential
candidate John Edwards’ baby cried on the witness stand on
Monday as she recalled why she let her husband say he was the
father of someone else’s child.
Cheri Young said Edwards, a former U.S. senator who was
seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, explained
that the arrangement was necessary both to keep his campaign
alive and to prevent his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, from
finding out about the affair.
After the candidate convinced his mistress, Rielle Hunter,
and the aide, Andrew Young, to go along with the cover-up, Cheri
Young said she felt she had no choice but to follow suit.
“I didn’t want the responsibility of knowing that because I
didn’t go along with this, that because I didn’t want to try it,
that the campaign would explode and it would be my fault and I
would have to live with it,” Cheri Young testified.
Her testimony opened the second week of Edwards’ federal
campaign finance trial in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Prosecutors accuse Edwards, 58, of conspiring with Andrew
Young to solicit more than $900,000 in illegal campaign
contributions from two wealthy donors as part of a plan to
conceal the candidate’s pregnant mistress from the media and
voters.
Edwards, a former trial attorney who became a two-time
presidential candidate and the Democrats’ vice presidential
nominee in 2004, faces possible prison time if convicted of
federal election law violations, including charges of
conspiracy, accepting illegal campaign contributions and making
false statements.
Andrew Young, the government’s lead witness, testified
against his former boss for much of last week. On Monday,
Young’s wife reiterated details from his testimony,
acknowledging that she used her maiden name to endorse checks
totaling $725,000 from heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and
deposited them in the Youngs’ personal bank accounts.
Cheri Young said she questioned the legality of the
arrangement. Through her husband’s job as a fundraiser, she knew
there were limits in how much an individual donor could provide
to a campaign, she said.
‘GET THE MONEY IN’
She said Edwards told her during a phone call that his
campaign advisers said the payments were legal, and he ordered
her to “get the money in” to assist Hunter.
“We were at a peak point” in the campaign, Young said. “And
if I didn’t do this to take care of this woman, the campaign was
going down.”
Edwards’ defense says the Youngs used much of the donor
money to help build themselves a $1.5 million home in North
Carolina. The defense argues that Edwards committed no crime
because the payments were of a personal nature to keep Elizabeth
Edwards from learning of the affair and not to influence the
election.
Prosecutors on Monday showed jurors bank records for the
$38,000 in checks the Youngs wrote to Hunter between June and
December 2007.
“We gave her a monthly stipend, which was per Mr. Edwards’
request,” said Cheri Young, her voice often filled with fury and
disgust as she described the events that took place years ago.
She said the Youngs also allowed Hunter to live with them in
North Carolina after a tabloid alleged that Edwards was having
an affair.
They bought her a $26,000 BMW and then paid her $2,700
monthly rent and other expenses once she moved into her own
place, Young said.
The Youngs and their three children eventually spent months
traveling with Hunter to luxury locations around the country to
further shield her from the media, Cheri Young said. Young said
she didn’t have a choice in where they went or whether she could
return home with her children as she wished to do.
While Edwards was still a candidate, “there really weren’t
any options,” she said.
(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Vicki Allen)
