The Los Angeles Times reports the Department of Justice is deciding
whether to indict former Senator John Edwards on criminal campaign finance charges related to a sex scandal.
A federal grand jury in North Carolina has spent two years investigating whether Edwards violated campaign finance law by using money from two supporters to keep his pregnant mistress and a former aide undercover while he sought the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Edwards, who was John F. Kerry's vice presidential running mate in 2004, admitted fathering a child with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter shortly after his wife's breast cancer had came back. Elizabeth Edwards died in December.
If Edwards reaches a pre-indictment plea agreement with federal prosecutors, he would probably have to surrender his law license, but would avoid a humiliating public trial. But his defense attorney's public comments make it sound as if Edwards was not considering any deals. His attorney predictably has told the media his client did not break the law, and even went so far as to say no law applied to his client's situation.
Edwards, a wealthy personal injury attorney whose message about "two Americas," refused for years to level with his family and the public about the true nature of his relationship with Hunter.
It wasn't until January 2010 that Edwards admitted he was the father of Frances Quinn Hunter. His confession came days before publication of "The Politician," a tell-all book by former Edwards aide Andrew Young, who played a key role in the deception.
To protect his political career from the sex scandal, Edwards is believed to have come up with a number of bizarre ideas. In late 2007, he somehow convinced Young, a married father of three, to admit fathering Hunter's baby. Young and his family went into hiding with Hunter, staying in luxury homes and hotels around the U.S.A. to avoid the detection by the media.
It was the payments for this ruse that led to the federal government's investigation.
The money is said to have come from two supporters - his national campaign finance chairman, Fred Baron, who died in 2008, and banking heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, who is 100.
In an interview last year, Young said Fred Baron gave hundreds of thousands of dollars and loaned his Aspen estate to the Young family and Hunter. Bunny Mellon gave about $700,000. Young said he and Edwards branded her payments "Bunny money."
Bunny's attorney told the Associated Press in January 2010 that Bunny gave the money to Edwards as a personal gift and she filed a gift tax return.
But federal prosecutors have a strong suspicion the money constituted campaign contributions because it was used to sustain Edwards's political life.
Hunter kept such a low profile that Time magazine headlined a February 2010 story, "The Quiet Dignity of Rielle Hunter."
A month later, though, she raised her profile by posing for GQ in a shirt with no pants.
In January 2010, Hunter sued Young and his wife, for invasion of privacy, seeking the return of a videotape she said the Youngs had stolen. The Youngs claimed that the tape, possibly showing Hunter and Edwards having sex, had been abandoned by Hunter. That civil suit is pending in North Carolina.
If you are being investigated by the Federal Government, you should not wait until an indictment has been filed to prepare your defense, contact Gold, Leftwich & Wagner, the LA Law Firm with over 80 years of combined experience.