Possible defence witness: Rielle Hunter, the former mistress of John Edwards, enters the federal courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, Thursday, August 6, 2009 with the pair's child Frances Quinn Hunter
GREENSBORO, NC — Is that any way to talk about your baby mama?
John Edwards had some filthy words for mistress Rielle Hunter when he found out she was pregnant with his love child, it was revealed during the disgraced former Norch Carolina senator’s federal trial yesterday.
“He said that she was ‘a crazy slut,’ and it was a ‘one-in-three chance’ that it was his child,” testified former aide Andrew Young, who had to break the news to Edwards because Hunter couldn’t get in touch with him.
Young then spilled details about how Edwards allegedly tried to buy Hunter’s silence as he campaigned for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Young, testifying with a guarantee of immunity, allegedly funneled $1.2 million to Hunter in exchange for her keeping the tawdry affair and love child under wraps.
“We were scared,” Young testified on Day Two of the trial, which could send Edwards to jail for 30 years for allegedly using his campaign funds as hush money.
“It was a truckload of money, more money than had ever flowed through our accounts. It was crazy.”
And Rielle knew how to spend it all.
“She had good taste,” said Young, who was once so blindly loyal that he publicly claimed Edwards’ love child was his own.
“We were using the money to keep her happy,” he added.
The unemployed Hunter was given a BMW, dined almost exclusively on organic foods, and indulged in shopping sprees at Neiman Marcus starting in May 2007 after she threatened to go public, Young testified.
She would often say, “I’m tired of living a lie. I’m going to go public,” Young testified — a threat that kept the money coming.
She traveled by private plane and demanded upgrades to luxury suites if the spiritual “energy” in a hotel room was bad.
She was given a credit card in the name of “R. Jaya James” and a monthly allowance between $5,000 and $12,000.
That was on top of the rent-free house she stayed in outside Chapel Hill — all courtesy of 101-year-old heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, who thought the money was going to help get Edwards elected president, Young testified. He also said Mellon unwittingly cut checks totaling $725,000 — well over the $2,300 campaign-donation limit — that went to Hunter.
Prosecutors claim Edwards knew that the scheme violated the law and that there was $933,000 in undeclared contributions from two donors.
Mellon would write the checks out to her interior designer, Bryan Huffman, who handled many of her affairs, with messages like, “Go John Edwards” — intended to help the campaign operations.
Huffman and Young’s wife, Cheri, would endorse the checks, with the money ending up in Hunter’s hands, Young said.
“[Edwards] told me he had talked to several campaign-finance experts and that is was legal,” Young testified. “It felt and smelled wrong. But he knew more about the law than we did. We believed him.”
But Edwards knew all along what the money was truly going for, Young testified.
One check said it was for “table money” — furniture for the campaign, Young said.
“We were concerned that a table could cost $100,000,” Young said, adding that he raised that concern with Edwards.
Young said that Edwards shot back, “Tables could cost that much.”
Still, Young testified, Edwards didn’t want to know the details of the arrangement just in case he was named attorney general in exchange for dropping out of the 2008 race.
The pol was worried about lying under oath during the security-clearance process, Young explained.
Young also secured a private cellphone for Edwards — dubbed the “Batphone” — so he and Hunter could talk without Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, knowing.
Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer, had been suspicious of Hunter since 2006, when she answered her husband’s cellphone and Hunter was on the line.
In one dramatic voicemail played for the jury yesterday, Edwards told Young he was going to confess to Elizabeth.
“ ’Cause I have to. I think I’ve got to tell her about this because it’s moving,” he said.
In other voicemails to Young, Edwards would refer to Hunter only as “her.”
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