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Subscribe to RSSCheri 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.
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 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?"
Full trial coverage on msnbc.com
"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.
Young recounted a four-way call among her, her husband, Hunter and Edwards in which "Mr. Edwards was trying to get everyone on board."
"'This is it; this is our time; we're going great; we've gotten this far,'" Young quoted Edwards as having said. She said she "didn't want the responsibility of knowing that because I didn't go along with this ... that the campaign would explode and it would be my fault."
"So I ultimately agreed to go along with the lie," she said, sobbing.
Young said Edwards seemed determined that his own wife, Elizabeth — who later died of cancer — must not learn about the affair with Hunter, a videographer for the presidential campaign.
"He didn't want her to find out at that point because she was going to die soon," Young said.
Before leaving court early because of a migraine headache, Young made it clear that she resented Edwards and Hunter, who moved in with the Youngs after The National Enquirer began trying to photograph her at her New Jersey home.
"She took a big spin and said, 'I'm here!'" said Young, who said it was intimidating to have "a presidential candidate's pregnant mistress coming to my house that night, last minute."
Some of the donors' money helped pay for Hunter's "spiritual adviser," Young testified, adding that Hunter once called the adviser when the wrong sauce arrived on her Reuben sandwich.
On another occasion, she said, Hunter rejected a hotel room because it didn't have "good energy."
After the Enquirer published pictures of Hunter and confronted Edwards about the affair, Young said, her immediate reaction was "Oh, my God. ... Well, i wanted to say 'I told you so,' but I didn't."
Steven Friedland, a professor at the Elon University School of Law in Elon, N.C., said Young succeeded in "personalizing this whole situation for the Youngs and showing that it's not really about the Youngs."
Instead, Friedland said, she showed that "it was about John Edwards" and how the Youngs "sacrificed for him and his presidential aspirations."
Michael Austin and Stacey Klein of NBC News and M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com contributed to this report. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.
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Edwards is a politician, everyone forgets that. They have their own rules and own sets of lies. They do as they please and their political Friends and money keeps them out of harms way. They remind me of watching wrestling, beat the heck out of each other for a few minutes then go and get drunk together afterwards.
Hang him, this is so disgusting and immoral ...........................
Also, Wikipedia says this "After John's January 21, 2010, public admission that he fathered a child with another woman, Elizabeth legally separated from him, intending to file for divorce after North Carolina's mandatory one-year separation policy,[26][27][28][29] though she later stated that they had no intent to divorce unless one of them would want to remarry."
I still don't think she was going to divorce him.
Please, oh please make this steamy novel-like courtroom drama play out like an Oscar winning movie to distract from actual crimes of inhumanity by Roy Cooper in North Carolina, NBC. I am almost certain I can hear film producers making plans to air the upcoming made-for-television show. Yes, I am certain.
I would never expect anything higher or more dignified from any of your reporters or CEO's.
Thanks for meeting my mark again.
"Lack of Loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life." - Napolean Hill
Tim: (Income Tax Evasion)
Do you know what happens if you get caught paying Kevin Vacca, under the table? Double indemnity if Kevin gets injured on the job. Want out? Non-payment of restitution for "Two Strong Boy" and Diane Bade's abortion (genocide) and the "murder" of Diane Bade!
It's my fingerprints FBI and my easel CIA
Signed:
RU486 Frenchie
WOW, is any one surprised by this, the Youngs just got cought and are trying to get out of this. If they had been good people they would have just said NO! A very easy word to use if your a good person, but they went along. Just like all the others when will there be a person or persons that stand up for what is right, maybe they will loose what they have maybe they will not? The fact in all this is they all got cought and now they are sorry, sorry they spent the money, sorry there was an afair sorry they went along, sorry, sorry ,sorry that is all you hear any more. If they were so sorry they would just come clean and tell everyone that they knew what they were doing was wrong but really did not give a @!$%# and did it any how. Instead we deal with this every day, over and over. When will it all stop and good honest people will run the country!
Why would anyone be surprised just another day of crap coming from our so called leaders that feel they have the right until they are cought!
you know cheri...you're a grown up. if you didn't want to do something you said have said no.
I don't care about any affair or wife cheating. This goes on all of the time by people more powerful and influential than Edwards. What I do care about is illegally using campaign funds, in any way. This is fraud and Edwards should be punished accordingly. Everything else is nothing more than a distraction and should not be the focus. If we continue to judge people bases on our own set of morals, enough people would have good cause to remove every elected official from office.
And Young apparently got more of these "campaign funds" than Edwards. Why is he being given immunity. That's not right. It's all about politics.
I would love to know who good old Rielle's "spiritual adviser" is - it probably will never be disclosed. And for good reason. Even this case has maxed out the number of charlatans it can bear.
This whole thing would have made a great paper back story.
How much tax payer money is being spent on this monkey trial? The criminal has been granted immunity to chase a perceived enemy of the prosecutor. Young collected, managed, and kept most of the money this trial is about. Yet, he is the one who will go free after it's all over. Apparently, the prosecutor had no case against Edwards without Young's lying tongue. This is nothing more than political ambition on the part of a prosecutor.
The money they stole to build thier mansion, says to me, they are the Quilty ones, and Cheri's crying because they may lose thier illgotten gains. They are the ones who signed the checks and laundered the money.
Also, "Shame on you John, for "Letting your Willy, woon, your wife."
politicians are only scum when they are caught in these messes , the rest of the time they are the salt of the earth and the only hope that the country has for it's future .
I disagree with Prof. Friedland when he says this turns the spotlight back on Edwards - it was a conspiracy by all four people, and the government should NEVER have granted immunity. If there is criminal behavior it is by all four, the Youngs, Rielle Hunter, and John Edwards. All are equally guilty. These folks can cry all they want - no sympathy here.
That being said - Edwards should be found not guilty of campaign fraud - and recharged with the others of outright theft of $2.1M - or it was hush money. The aldultery and the baby are between him and the gods.
The Bush-appointed federal prosecutor in the Edward's case has spent all this taxpayer money to prosecute Edwards so that he could stay in office after Obama's election. He figured this case would be a big political win for him, personally, as he plans to run for elected office here in NC himself. He's as big a political sleaze as Edwards and the Young's.
this isn't the first time this happened by a political figure and the women who are attracted to someone with political power no matter who is hurt, they just got caught.....John Edwards remark that his wife was going to die soon anyway is probably one of the most evil remarks I have ever heard. Here is a perfect example of the mask of a politician, you just can't trust any of them anymore.
What a piece of garbage this guy is. Reminds me of that slimey worm Bill Clinton. Except I don't see any cheering, dismissives, and high fiving over this affair. This is a classic case of people putting the party and the candidate above honesty and common sense. The sad thing is this happens all the time nowadays.
At least Monika didnt get knocked up. This whole thing is enough to make you want to PUKE! Bring me a bucket! Lets hear it again: Its Bush's fault!
WHY is this news?? I have always said...I could care less about who cheats on who! Why is this my business? Or ANYONES business for that matter!! I think he is scum ONLY because of how he didnt stand by his Wife in her last dying days due to some TRAMP having a Baby! Hunter is/was the problem. She should have kept her legs closed and left the married man alone.
One thing I hate is a Home Wrecking Tramp!
A home-wrecking tramp, indeed. Any woman who goes after and/or sleeps with a man whom she KNOWS is either married or involved with another woman, deserves to have her face torn off.
I don't understand how the media just kinda glosses over the fact that these dirtbags stole a million dollars!
None of these people are poster children for character. Edwards was unfaithful to his wife and then stayed in the presidential race, despite this ticking time-bomb of scandal (thus including millions in his otherwise merely domestic betrayal of trust). Hunter had an affair with this married man. The Youngs agreed to take part in this cover-up and then richly benefited from it financially.
They all had a moment when they could have chosen to do the right thing, but NONE of them did. Mrs. Young doesn't deserve kudos - now that the whole mess has been exposed - for being angry about it. Mr. Edwards did not wrong her - she made a deal with him. She and her husband could have refused. Clearly - had they given it any thought at all - they would have realized that Edwards didn't belong in the race; the risks were too great. They had their own selfish reasons for supporting him. That's all that happened here.
I can't believe that now she hates Edwards, now she hates Hunter but when the money was flowing between her fingers she sure wasn't hating them then. She is as despicable as her sleazy husband with his obsession with a pretty boy, nasty mistress and conceited Edwards cheating on a dying wife, it's like they were all vultures waiting for the only innocent person in this mess to die so the whole lying mess wouldn't get out. I hope her hand in this haunts her for ever and it was worth selling her soul for a few pieces of silver.
Rielle Hunter is no innocent in all of this, she probably deliberately got her ugly self knocked up to try to trap Edwards into marrying her, and getting her tentacles into his wallet. In my opinion, that low life piece of scum is just as bad as Edwards. She should go to jail just for being so ugly and selfish.
To the person who said "Obama is a wonderful, faithful man.." Excuse me, he has been trying to force our nation to accept everything he thinks is good even when it is ill-advised. He might appear to have a good marriage, but that's not what he was elected for.
I have read that those close to him say Obama is bi-sexual. To me this adds up, because of his staunch support of many gay"agenda goals, and the fact that he appointed an extremely "out and proud" guy named Kevin Jennings as 'safe school czar" when there were plenty of other people who could have done a much better job without mixing in their personal very enthusiastic homosexuality theme in all of their work and writing as Jennings did.
There have been no former girlfriends at all surfacing anywhere the entire time BO has been in the public eye. BO often has young male aides running around with him, and there were well-substantiated reports of an execution-style murder of a gay choir director at Obama's church named Donald Young with whom some believed Obama was having a relationship in Chicago. This murder took place in late 2007 I believe. It was never solved. Obama surged into the spotlight a few months after it took place.
Wow.
This isn't about Obama or Bush for that matter. Do some simple research before spouting off falsehoods.
One of Os former girlfriends has a book out.
You know, I don't condone what Edwards did, BUT.. these people who are testifying against him made the decision to hide what they're exposing now.. If they felt there was a moral problem they should have exposed him at the time instead of waiting. People like that are so full of crap! No one can stop you from exposing a wrong if you want to expose it. No one can stop you from coming forward when someone is doing something illegal, immoral and totally against all you believe. What John Edwards did is and should be between himself, his wife and 'girlfriend' and of course God.. He will be judged, as we all well be; it's not up to us to judge or condemn. Now, if he misused public funds, then they should be paid back-but all the other stuff is really not our affair... and I can't believe this woman cried about being under stress to hide the facts.. she should have listened to her heart/brain/soul and reported it when she found out about it-regardless about anything else or anyone else involved.. While her husband had a good job with Edwards, his secret was safe-when the secret was threatened, the job was threatened.. so HEY, lets go ahead and totally expose the man that we've held as a good employer and friend.. people are so two-faced, especially in politics; although it happens in everyday life too.
For all those feigning shock and dismay. The man was an ambulance chasing attorney. He "channeled" the spirit of a dead young girl in one of his courtroom "performances" in the presence of her "grieving" but seriously under-compensated parents. These kinds of bottom feeders are capable of much more heinous acts than this buffoon ever did. He was, after all, an attorney.