Furniture dealer adds light touch to John Edwards trial - Chicago Tribune

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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Former Edwards aide to retake the witnesses stand - Boston.com

GREENSBORO, N.C.—Testimony at the criminal trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards will resume with former aide Andrew Young expected to retake the stand for a second day in North Carolina.

Young was the first witness called by prosecutors Monday. The former aide is key to making the government's case that Edwards masterminded the effort to use nearly $1 million in secret payments from wealthy campaign donors to hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008. Young falsely claimed paternity of his boss' child and moved the woman in with his wife and family.

Edwards' defense lawyers will seek to show Young siphoned off much of the secret money to build a $1.5 million dream house.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six criminal counts related to campaign finance violations.

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John Edwards trial begins Monday with opening statements - Los Angeles Times

Former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John Edwards arrives outside federal court in Greensboro, N.C., with his daughter Cate. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton / April 23, 2012)

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Opening statements are set for today in the trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards, as federal prosecutors try to prove that more than $900,000 paid to Edwards by two wealthy benefactors during his run for the White House should have been reported as campaign contributions because the money flowed to his mistress to preserve Edwards' image as a "family first" candidate.

Edwards' defense team is expected to argue that the payments were gifts from wealthy friends and the money was used for expenses unrelated to the 2008 campaign. The fact that Edwards paid his mistress, campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, and helped her through the birth of a child fathered by the candidate, does not mean Edwards had to declare the gifts as campaign contributions, his lawyers say.

Edwards’ lawyers contend that the government's case requires the jury to accept a novel interpretation of a campaign finance law that “has never been the basis of criminal or even civil liability in the statute's history.’’ The defense also plans to call two former FEC commissioners to the stand, who are expected to testify that, under the law at the time the money was paid to Edwards, it was not clear that it had to be classified as a campaign contribution.

Campaign finance experts have said that the violations at issue have been previously handled as civil penalties, resulting in fines and payback requirements for the offending candidates.

“This case is significant both legally and politically,’’ said Kenneth Gross, a Washington ethics lawyer. “This is the first criminal case dealing with an excessive gift, particularly a gift not ever going to a campaign, and spent for purposes seemingly unrelated to a campaign.’’

Prosecutors contend that bills paid by two Edwards benefactors, Rachel “Bunny’’ Mellon, a banking heiress from Virginia, and the late Fred Baron, a Texas lawyer, actually were campaign donations because they were intended to protect Edwards' candidacy, which would have been derailed had the public learned of the affair.

“The charges against John Edwards in this case flow from his knowing and willful violation of the federal campaign finance laws during his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president,’’ prosecutors said in court filings.

Justice Department prosecutors contend this is a straightforward case of broken campaign finance laws:

“A federal candidate may only accept and receive a limited amount of money from any one individual during an election cycle, and he must truthfully report the money he accepts and receives,’’ the department said in a trial brief.

The former senator from North Carolina has pleaded not guilty to six criminal counts related to campaign finance violations. If convicted of all charges, Edwards faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. Opening arguments are scheduled to begin Monday morning and the much-anticipated trial is expected to last at least six weeks.

Critics of the prosecution, while noting that Edwards' conduct was reprehensible, argue that the government is going too far in trying to tie a candidate's personal life to complex campaign finance laws.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that generally supports the Justice Department against politicians charged with corruption, took the unusual step of criticizing prosecutors for pursuing the case. The group contends that the payments were gifts, not campaign contributions, noting that the payments continued after Edwards ended his campaign.

The group cited a 2002 Federal Election Commission decision in which six commissioners unanimously agreed that a loan made to a congressman to help defray the costs of his divorce was not a campaign contribution because the donor and the politician “had a preexisting personal relationship.” The same precedent should apply to Edwards, the group said, because the money came from friends.

“Sen. Edwards’ conduct was despicable and deserves society’s condemnation, but that alone does not provide solid grounds for a criminal case,” the group said in a statement last year.

The trial is starting about a year and a half after Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, died of cancer. Edwards carried on the affair with Hunter while his wife was terminally ill.

Edwards’ defense team has suggested that he did not know about the money from Mellon and Baron. “The government assumes that Mr. Edwards knew about the monies; the evidence will prove otherwise,’’ his attorneys said in a court filing.

It’s unclear whether Edwards, who built a lucrative career as a personal injury lawyer, will take the stand. His defense team includes prominent Washington lawyer Abbe D. Lowell.

Edwards in August 2008 admitted to the affair with Hunter after first denying it.  At the time, he denied fathering Hunter’s child. Then, in January 2010, he admitted he was the father of Frances Quinn Hunter.

A key witness is expected to be Andrew Young, a former Edwards campaign aide who falsely claimed he was the father of Hunter’s child to protect his boss. Young later wrote a tell-all book, “The Politician.’’

The defense is expected to attack Young, saying in a trial brief that the payments by Mellon and Baron covered Hunter's personal expenses “and, much more so, the Youngs' personal expenses, such as construction of their dream home, not Mr. Edwards' expenses.''

Hunter is expected to be called to the stand. Baron is dead. Mellon, who is 101, is not expected to testify, but her attorney may be called as a witness. The exhibits also include voice mails left by Baron and notes from Mellon to Edwards.

Edwards’ eldest daughter, Cate, is on the defense witness list. The case is before Judge Catherine C. Eagles, who was appointed to the bench by President Obama.

David Meeks contributed from Washington.

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Edwards Trial Set to Begin, Reopening a Story of a Derailed Political Career - New York Times

Mr. Edwards stands accused of misusing campaign money to hide both an affair with a former campaign videographer and the child they conceived as he made his run for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president.

The trial in nearby Greensboro, which Judge Catherine C. Eagles of Federal District Court expects to take six weeks, promises to continue the long story of Mr. Edwards’s derailed career and scarred personal life.

But for the government, the case goes beyond the messiness of an affair that Mr. Edwards repeatedly denied, even as his wife, Elizabeth, was suffering from the cancer that eventually took her life in 2010.

Prosecutors have been unyielding in their pursuit of a case that they say represents a clear and flagrant misuse of $925,000 that they argue was used to try to influence the outcome of the election. If he is convicted on all six counts, Mr. Edwards, 58, faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

The government’s case is simple: Mr. Edwards knowingly accepted the money from two wealthy donors and used it to keep information from the public that would have surely torpedoed his presidential campaign. Thus, the money was a campaign contribution and its use a conspiracy.

Mr. Edwards’s legal team rejects that argument entirely: the money was a gift from two friends and was intended to help a candidate they believed in deal with a personal problem. Mr. Edwards, his lawyers say, was not aware of the donations.

They will try to characterize the case as being politically motivated. It began under the tenure of George Holding, a Republican appointee of President George W. Bush who stayed on as a United States attorney under the Obama administration to bring the case to trial.

Mr. Holding had long been politically hostile to Mr. Edwards, the defense lawyers say, and hoped the case would help his political ambitions. Mr. Holding retired last year, a month after securing Mr. Edward’s indictments, and then announced he was running for Congress in 2012.

But some political strategists dismiss the defense’s theory as mere posturing. The case has little political relevance, they say, especially so long after the alleged crimes were committed.

“Nobody cares about what’s happening to John Edwards anymore — he’s old news,” said Donnie Fowler, a technology and political consultant who has worked for seven presidential candidates and was a senior adviser to President Obama. “He’s not relevant to the Democrats in Washington or state capitals. And attacking John Edwards for the Republicans would be like attacking George McGovern.”

Still, students of campaign finance will look to the trial for new interpretations of how money from political action committees and other campaign-related donations can be spent, especially as the growing influence of “super PACs” is playing out in the 2012 presidential election.

The government’s legal team, which David V. Harbach II of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section is directing, faces a lineup of high-powered white-collar criminal defense lawyers led by Abbe D. Lowell, a former Justice Department official and Washington insider.

Although the defense strategy has yet to be fully revealed, Mr. Lowell will certainly be looking to lay the groundwork for a potential appeal. It is not clear whether Mr. Edwards will testify or to what extent will participate in his defense.

Mr. Edwards, who deposed Monica Lewinsky during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, was considered such a skilled trial lawyer that others in the profession would rush to catch his closing arguments.

Of course, it will be hard for both sides to keep the focus on the intricacies of campaign finance law when the central story of the trial hangs on a dying wife, an illicit affair and an attempted cover-up thought to be so elaborate that Mr. Edwards persuaded a loyal campaign aide, Andrew Young, to claim paternity and go underground with his own family and Rielle Hunter, Mr. Edwards’s paramour.

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