Former presidential candidate and vice pres- idential nominee John Edwards was saved Thursday from up to 30 years in jail as a federal jury failed to reach a verdict in his campaign finance trial in Greensboro, N.C.
OF ALLEGED 2008 CAMPAIGN FINANCE VIOLATIONS,
IN ATTEMPT TO COVER UP EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIR
A mistrial was declared Thursday in the campaign finance trial of 2008 presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards as a U.S. District Court jury couldn’t decide which admitted liar to trust — Edwards or the campaign aide who for four years falsely claimed paternity of the ex-senator’s illegitimate child.
The 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, who ran with losing presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, was accused of violating campaign finance laws during his failed 2008 campaign by accepting nearly $1 million from two donors to conceal an extramarital affair with a campaign worker, and her subsequent pregnancy with his child.
Prosecutors charged that the donors — wealthy banking heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, now 101, and the late Fred Baron — provided more than $900,000 in funds to Edwards aide Andrew Young, who hid the mistress, Rielle Hunter, from his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, and from the press for months while he was running for President.
Elizabeth Edwards, now deceased, was dying of cancer at the time of the affair.
Edwards, 58, faced up to 30 years in prison had he been convicted on all counts. The jury acquitted him on the weakest of six counts against him, the only count on which they were able to reach a verdict.
Although unlikely, it was unclear as of late-night Thursday whether prosecutors would seek a new trial. The mistrial was considered a major victory for Edwards, who will now get to keep his law license, leaving open the opportunity to return to legal practice where he made a name for himself as a record-setting trial lawyer before entering elective politics.
On Thursday, following the end of the trial, flanked by his parents and eldest daughter Cate outside on the courthouse steps, Edwards thanked the jury for their hard work, then added:
“While I do not believe that I did anything that was illegal… I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong.”
— VoB Staff report
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS SEE THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’S COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF THE MISTRIAL (click here) AND ALSO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ACCOUNT IN THE HUFFINGTON POST (click here)
