Prosecutor Robert Higdon asked interior decorator Bryan Huffman if he had sold heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon a $65,000 table.
He had not. Nor had he sold her a $200,000 bookcase. Or a $100,000 antique Charles-ton table.
Huffman was in the furniture business.
But he was not peddling furniture -- at least not in his dealings with presidential candidate John Ed-wards or campaign staffer Andrew Young.
On Thursday, Huffman took the stand in Edwards' trial.
He told prosecutors how he had served as an intermediary between Mellon and Young, passing along checks to help hide an affair Edwards was having with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.
Edwards, 58, is charged with campaign finance violations in connection with nearly $1 million from Mellon and Texas trial lawyer Fred Baron that went toward covering up the affair.
In 2007, Edwards conceived a baby with Hunter and talked Young into claiming paternity. Young, his family and Hunter went into hiding just as the National Enquirer was about to break news of Hunter's pregnancy.
Evidence presented last week indicated that Young kept much of the money intended for the cover-up.
Huffman took the stand wearing a yellow and blue plaid suit jacket, blue shirt, yellow tie and yellow handkerchief, along with charcoal gray pants.
The 48-year-old Monroe resident provided a much-needed bit of comic relief after emotional testimony the day before about Ed-wards' wife, Elizabeth, having a breakdown, and Thursday morning's dry recounting of campaign events and run-ins with Hunter.
Even Edwards himself chuckled a few times as Huffman talked about his friendship with Mellon.
In 2004, Huffman attended services at an Episcopal church while visiting his sister in northern Virginia and noticed Mellon's name. She and her husband had given money to build it.
He wrote her a letter, saying he was impressed with the church, and they soon became close, with Mellon asking if she could call him at night because she needed "an evening friend."
Mellon also gave him some blankets.
"She doesn't want her friend cold in the mountains," Huffman said, much to the amusement of those in the courtroom.
Mellon had mentioned that she was a fan of Ed-wards. Huffman discovered his sister had attended law school with Young and was able to set up a meeting.
In 2007 Mellon, upset about media reports concerning Edwards' $400 haircut, wrote a letter offering to pay for his haircuts in the future.
"She thought he needed to look good," Huffman said on the stand.
Soon after, Young called, asking Mellon to give large sums of money over a six- to nine-month period.
She agreed, even though Young did not say what the money was for.
In order to avoid drawing the attention of her lawyer, Alex Forger, and to distance the money from the Edwards campaign, she made the checks out to Huffman and wrote "chairs," "tables" and the like in the memo line.
Mellon ended up writing $725,000 worth of checks, which Young's wife, Cheri, deposited in her account.
Forger found out about the checks, and in May 2008 while attending the funeral for Mellon's daughter Eliza, he confronted Huffman.
Huffman recalled Mellon's reaction when told Forger was onto the scheme: "Oh dear."
Soon after, plans for an anti-poverty organization, for which Young had hoped to work in exchange for taking part in the cover-up, fell apart.
Huffman said Mellon balked at mortgaging her farm in Upperville, Va., to get the $40 million to pay for it.
Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com
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