Wife of ex-Edwards aide cries on stand

Associated Press

GREENSBORO, N.C.

The wife of an ex-aide to John Edwards broke down on the witness stand Monday as she recounted how the candidate asked the couple to hide an affair he was having and justified using wealthy donors’ money to do it.

Testifying at Edwards’ campaign corruption trial, Cheri Young said she huddled around a phone in her Chapel Hill home during December 2007 with her husband, Andrew Young, and Edwards’ pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter.

On the call, Edwards emphasized the need to preserve his campaign and keep the affair from his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, Cheri Young said. It was a couple of weeks before the 2008 Iowa caucuses, and two suspicious tabloid reporters already had tracked Hunter from a doctor’s appointment to the Youngs’ home.

Asked by a prosecutor why she went along with it, Young put her hands together, pressed them to her chin and bowed her head as if in prayer. As she began to weep, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Eagles dismissed the jury to give her time to compose herself.

About 25 feet away, Edwards sat back in his chair and put two fingers to his pursed lips. As Young dabbed her tears with a tissue, the former U.S. senator glanced at his watch.

Once the jury returned, Young answered the question.

“I felt like everything had been dumped in my lap,” she said. “Everybody was on board but me. ... I didn’t want the campaign to explode and for it to be my fault. I ultimately decided to live with a lie.”

During the call, Edwards suggested that it would only be a one-day story if Andrew Young took responsibility for the baby.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six counts related to campaign-finance violations. He faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if convicted on all counts.