GREENSBORO, N.C. - John Edwards’ former aide acknowledged Thursday that much of nearly $1 million in campaign supporters’ cash went to build his North Carolina dream house, not to buy the silence of the presidential candidate’s pregnant mistress.
Andrew Young testified for a fourth day at Edwards’ campaign finance fraud trial, peppered with questions from Edwards attorney Abbe Lowell about money from two donors that flowed into accounts Young and his wife controlled.
Young has said he took secret payments from wealthy donors at Edwards’ direction to help conceal the presidential contender’s affair with Rielle Hunter and keep his 2008 presidential campaign viable.
Young said checks secretly provided by a 96-year-old heiress were mixed with the couple’s other funds as they built their $1.5 million hilltop house on 10 acres near Chapel Hill, N.C. Young often deferred questions on the payments to his wife, Cheri, saying “my wife is the one who handles the finances in our family.’’
Young’s testimony is considered key to the prosecution’s case that Edwards directed a scheme to use the money from the heiress and a Texas lawyer to conceal his affair with Hunter.
Young initially claimed he was the father of Hunter’s daughter and took her into his home.
At the time, Young and his wife were living with Hunter in a $20,000-a-month rental mansion along the California coast, paid for by a wealthy lawyer who served as Edwards’ campaign finance chairman.
“We were living out in Santa Barbara and we lost our sense of perspective,’’ Young said on the witness stand. “The house became more and more extravagant.’’
Edwards denies knowing about $725,000 from heiress Rachel “Bunny’’ Mellon sent to Young through her interior designer. In addition to the maximum $2,300 to the Edwards campaign allowed by law, Mellon provided $6.4 million to a political action committee and antipoverty foundation tied to Edwards.
A second pool of money at issue involves $200,000 given by wealthy lawyer Fred Baron. Records show Baron paid for private jets, five-star hotels, and other expenses incurred by Hunter and the Youngs while they were in hiding. Baron died of cancer at age 61 in 2008.
The questions about the cash from Mellon came toward the end of a full day of cross-examination in which Lowell sought to undermine the former aide’s credibility and paint him as a pathological liar.
Lowell asked Young whether he first learned Hunter was pregnant in May 2007, as his book says; in June 2007, as he testified; or in early July, a date backed by phone records and Hunter’s medical records.
The timeline issues could challenge the accounts of conversations Young said he had with Edwards about whom to ask for money to help take care of Hunter.
Young said he couldn’t recall the exact date for either event.