Lawyer testifies heiress meant payments as gifts, not contributions, to John Edwards
Rachel "Bunny" Mellon's longtime attorney testified that Mellon gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to John Edwards out of "a deep friendship." NBC's Lisa Myers reports from Greensboro, N.C.The lawyer for Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, the billionaire heiress who bankrolled payments to support John Edwards' mistress, testified forcefully Monday that Mellon considered the payments to be gifts to Edwards, not campaign contributions.
The distinction is critical. The government contends that those payments — and about $250,000 from a second wealthy supporter — constituted illegal and unreported donations to Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign. Edwards, who is charged in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., with six felony counts, argues that they were separate from the campaign and therefore legal.
Lisa Myers and Stacey Klein of NBC News contributed to this report by M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.
Mellon, heiress to the Mellon banking fortune, made the payments, which were falsely labeled as being for furniture purchases, because of her deep friendship with Edwards and her desire to help him with a "personal problem," her lawyer, Alex Forger, testified.Witness: Bunny Mellon thought paying for John Edwards' mistress was 'foolish' but fun
The 101-year-old heiress who funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to help John Edwards cover up his extramarital affair thought the whole operation was "foolish" but was having a "wonderful time," the middleman in the payments said Friday.Bryan Huffman, interior designer and friend of 101-year-old heiress Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, testified that Mellon didn't condemn Edwards after finding out the money she provided to Andrew Young went toward Edwards' personal problem. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
The witness, Bryan Huffman, was an interior designer for Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, the centenarian heiress to the Mellon banking fortune who was a major supporter of Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign.Edwards refused to lie about affair under oath, ex-aide testifies
Although several former aides testified that John Edwards lied to them about his affair Edwards' defense lawyer established that he wasn't willing to sign an affidavit denying paternity. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.Updated at 7:10 p.m. ET: Prosecutors in John Edwards' campaign finance trial were thrown for a loop Thursday when a former aide testified that Edwards refused to lie under oath about his affair with Rielle Hunter.
Mark Kornblau, national press spokesman for on Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign, said he initially publicly denied reports of Edwards's affair in 2007 because he believed the story to be untrue.
Things changed in December of that year, when a tabloid newspaper editor said he would stop publishing stories about the affair if Edwards would sign an affidavit swearing under oath that he wasn't the father of Hunter's daughter, Kornblau testified.
Edwards refused, Kornblau said.
"Mr. Edwards would not sign an affidavit?" asked Edwards' chief defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell.John Edwards depicted as controlling, manipulative politician
Updated at 7 p.m. ET: After a week and a half of tense and emotional testimony about the impact of John Edwards' affair on his closest associates, prosecutors shifted their focus Wednesday and began painting a picture of the former Democratic presidential candidate as a manipulative and greedy politician who used campaign donations for his own purposes.In what turned into a dramatic day in court at the John Edwards corruption trial, Edwards' daughter left the courtroom in tears as testimony turned to her mother's reaction to her father's extramarital affair. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
On the eighth day of Edwards' campaign finance trial, Edwards' daughter Cate left the courtroom in tears as a witness began to recount a conversation her mother had with a campaign aide about the affair.
Wife of John Edwards' accuser says sleeping pills affected spouse's memory
Cheri Young denied she harbors any hatred toward John Edwards. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
The wife of the chief accuser in former Sen. John Edwards' campaign finance trial acknowledged under oath Tuesday that she told the FBI her husband used sleeping pills that made him "loopy" and interfered with his memory.
But Cheri Young, the wife of former top Edwards aide Andrew Young, fought off attempts by Edwards' lawyers to cast doubt on the couple's recollection of events, denying that his use of prescription sleeping pills or her migraine headaches hampered their memories. She also denied telling the FBI that her husband drank too much.Cheri Young emotionally describes stress of covering up John Edwards' affair
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The wife of the star prosecution witness broke down on the stand Monday morning while recounting how former Sen. John Edwards wanted her husband to falsely claim paternity for the child of his mistress, Rielle Hunter.Cheri Young, the wife of the government's star witness in the John Edwards corruption trial, will return to the stand Tuesday. On Monday, Young talked about how far her family had gone to cover up Edwards' extramarital affair. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
Cheri Young testified that when her husband, former Edwards aide Andrew Young, told her about Edwards' request, her first thought was "how in the world could Mr. Edwards ask one more thing of me of us?"
"Of course, I said absolutely not," Young testified, saying she screamed and cursed at her husband.
Cheri Young took the witness stand after her husband spent last week describing how nearly $1 million in money from supporters of Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign was funneled to support Hunter and the Youngs after rumors of the Edwards-Hunter affair surfaced. She is also key to the prosecution's campaign finance case because she was asked to countersign checks from one of the donors, which were routed through her decorator.The John Edwards trial: where it is; where it's going
ANALYSISNBC's Lisa Myers updates the Jon Ewrds trial. Then, TODAY's Lester Holt talks with lawyer Mark Geragos about the first week of the prosecution's case.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — After an eventful first five days, here are three keys as the John Edwards case moves on to week two:
Did the defense's cross-examination of Andrew Young destroy the government's case?
Hampton Dellinger, a litigation partner with Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson
of Charlotte and Chapel Hill, N.C., is former deputy attorney general
of North Carolina and has taught election law at Duke University Law
School. In 2008, he sought the Democratic nomination for lieutenant
governor of North Carolina.
Stymied by technical glitches (no mike, a balky video player), frequently sustained objections and a somewhat scattershot approach, the cross-examination of Edwards' former aide by lead defense attorney Abbe Lowell got off to a halting start. But by Day Two, Lowell's questioning of Young had turned surgical. Time and again, Lowell forced Young to acknowledge inconsistencies among his past statements, and between those statements and his courtroom testimony. The centerpiece came when Young acknowledged that most of the $925,000 the government contends went to cover up Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter was, in fact, kept by Young and his wife, Cheri, to finance a family manse.Lawyers argue over sex tape at John Edwards trial
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Lawyers in the John Edwards trial wrangled with the judge over whether to allow testimony about a sex tape of the former presidential candidate and allegations of an affair involving Andrew Young, the ex-aide who ended a week on the stand Friday, and a witness.John Edwards' lawyer maneuvered to shred the credibility of the prosecution's star witness, Andrew Young. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
Edwards is accused of directing a conspiracy to use about $1 million in campaign donors' payments to help hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008. He denies knowing about the money and has pleaded not guilty.
Young testified this week that he deposited the payments from an elderly heiress and a wealthy Texas lawyer who served as Edwards' campaign finance chairman into personal accounts controlled by him and his wife. The money was used to help build a $1.5 million North Carolina home; Young, who is testifying under an immunity agreement, said Friday that he didn't pay income taxes on the money, considering it a "gift."John Edwards' lawyer accuses Andrew Young of trying to cash in on scandal
Andrew Young, John Edwards former aide, was on the witness stand for the fourth consecutive day. Lawyers for Edwards questioned Young's credibility, attacking his timeline of events and pointed out inconsistencies between his testimony and what he wrote in his book about the former presidential candidate's affair with Rielle Hunter. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards' defense lawyer on Thursday picked apart ex-aide Andrew Young's story that he was asked to use campaign money to conceal Edwards' affair with a mistress, accusing him of making up stories about the former presidential contender to make money off of the scandal.
Andrew Young took witness stand for a fourth straight day at Edwards' campaign finance fraud trial. The star prosecution witness is key to the government's case that while campaigning for the White House in 2008, Edwards directed a scheme to use nearly $1 million in secret payments from two wealthy donors to conceal an affair with his pregnant mistress.Star prosecution witness comes under fierce questioning in John Edwards trial
GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards' lawyers got their first crack at the prosecution's star witness in his campaign finance criminal trial Wednesday, attacking former aide Andrew Young for inconsistencies in his account of the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate's affair with his campaign videographer.Andrew Young, a longtime aide to former presidential candidate John Edwards, admitted there were discrepancies between his tell-all book and his court testimony. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
During cross-examination, Edwards' lead defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, focused on discrepancies between Young's tell-all book "The Politician" and what he said this week in court.Payments to mistress 'smelled wrong,' former aide to John Edwards testifies
Andrew Young, the once-loyal aide to former presidential candidate John Edwards, is now a star-witness for the prosecution. In court today Young shared previously undisclosed details about Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Andrew Young, John Edwards' former campaign aide and close friend, testified Tuesday that using money from wealthy donors to help support Edwards' mistress and cover up their affair "felt and smelled wrong."
"It just all seems crazy," Young said in the second day of his testimony at Edwards' campaign finance criminal trial. "It felt and smelled wrong."
Continual phone calls from Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, a videographer on his campaign staff, were so frustrating, Young said, that one day he answered her call by saying, "Somebody better be pregnant or dying."For John Edwards, an unexpected opening
Lawyers for John Edwards opened the defense Monday with a scathing attack on Edwards' former aide Andrew Young, who managed the affair cover-up. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
ANALYSIS
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The list of John Edwards' gambles is legendary. It grew longer on Monday.
The dice roll came early in Alison Van Laningham's opening statement on behalf of the once-acclaimed lawyer and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee:
We are not here to debate whether a large amount of money flowed from Mrs. Mellon or Mr. Baron. We now know that it did. We are here to follow the path of that money, to follow the path, and the evidence will show that it ended up in the pockets of Andrew and Cheri Young and in the wood and in the stone and in the walls and in the roof of their $1.5 million house in Chapel Hill.
(Those reference are to Fred Baron and Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, money from whom was used for the travel and living expenses of Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter and of political aide Andrew Young and his family in 2007 and 2008, while Edwards was seeking the Democratic nomination for president.)
Hampton Dellinger, a litigation partner with Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson
of Charlotte and Chapel Hill, N.C., is former deputy attorney general
of North Carolina and has taught election law at Duke University Law
School. In 2008, he sought the Democratic nomination for lieutenant
governor of North Carolina.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Full trial coverage of John Edwards pge 2
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment