Federal prosecutors drop case against John Edwards

MICHAEL BIESECKER

Asso­ci­ated Press

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors dropped all charges Wednes­day against John Edwards after his cor­rup­tion trial ended last month in a dead­locked jury.

Jurors in North Car­olina acquit­ted the for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date on one count of accept­ing ille­gal cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions and dead­locked on five other felony counts. The judge declared a mistrial.

Pros­e­cu­tors will not seek to retry Edwards on the five unre­solved counts, accord­ing to a U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment statement.

Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­eral Lanny A. Breuer, who over­sees the agency’s crim­i­nal divi­sion, said pros­e­cu­tors knew the case, like all cam­paign finance cases, would be chal­leng­ing. But he said it is “our duty to bring hard cases” when warranted.

“Last month, the gov­ern­ment put for­ward its best case against Mr. Edwards, and I am proud of the skilled and pro­fes­sional way in which our pros­e­cu­tors…. con­ducted this trial,” he said.

Edwards was accused of mas­ter­mind­ing a scheme to use about $1 mil­lion in secret pay­ments from two wealthy polit­i­cal donors to hide his preg­nant mis­tress as he sought the White House in 2008. He would have faced up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 mil­lion in fines if con­victed of all charges.

At trial, the case against Edwards rested largely on the tes­ti­mony of his for­mer right-hand man, Andrew Young, who ini­tially claimed pater­nity of his boss’s baby and deposited most of the money at issue in the case into his family’s per­sonal accounts. But upon cross exam­i­na­tion, Edwards’ lawyers used incon­sis­ten­cies from Young’s past state­ments to under­mine his cred­i­bil­ity and showed the aide and his wife siphoned off much of the money to help build their $1.6 mil­lion dream home.

A for­mer trial lawyer, Edwards elected not tes­tify at his six-week trial. His mis­tress, Rielle Hunter, also didn’t take the stand.

After delib­er­at­ing for nine days, jurors acquit­ted Edwards on a charge of accept­ing ille­gal cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions, involv­ing $375,000 from elderly heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mel­lon in 2008. He had also been charged with ille­gally accept­ing $350,000 from Mel­lon in 2007, other dona­tions from wealthy Texas attor­ney Fred Baron, fil­ing a false cam­paign finance report and conspiracy.

Edwards’ lawyers — Abbe Low­ell, Alli­son Van Lan­ing­ham and Alan W. Dun­can — said in a joint state­ment that they are pleased with the government’s deci­sion not to seek a sec­ond trial that they believe would have had the same outcome.

“While John has repeat­edly admit­ted to his sins, he has also con­sis­tently asserted, as we demon­strated at the trial, that he did not vio­late any cam­paign law nor even imag­ined that any cam­paign laws could apply,” they said. “We are very glad that, after liv­ing under this cloud for over three years, John and his fam­ily can have their lives back and enjoy the peace they deserve.”

Edwards, who lives in Chapel Hill, has not yet issued a state­ment. His eldest daugh­ter, Cate Edwards, reacted using her Twit­ter account moments after pros­e­cu­tors announced their deci­sion. She sat behind her father in the court­room nearly every day of his six week trial.

“Big sigh of relief,” Cate Edwards, 30, tweeted. “Ready to move for­ward with life.”

Posted by AP News on Jun 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.