I’m sorry we haven’t been covering more (or any) of the John Edwards trial. It just got too complicated and it was full of legalese, and considering I’m not a lawyer, I didn’t think I had any business trying to write about it. I was following the trial to a certain degree – from what I saw, John Edwards’s lawyers were putting up a spirited defense, a defense that amounted to “Yes, John Edwards is a sleazy MF. But being sleazy isn’t illegal.” It also didn’t help that the money trail seemed awfully convoluted – one wealthy donor giving money directly to Edwards’s aide Andrew Young, who then lied to and about Rielle Hunter, and Young funded Rielle and Quinn out of that money, and it seemed difficult for the prosecution to prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) that the money was actually, originally intended for the campaign. And Young might have kept a lot of the money for himself too.
Anyway, the verdict came in yesterday. Sort of. The North Carolina jury had been out since May 18, and when the jury first came in on Thursday, many believed they had finally come to a verdict on the SIX charges against Edwards. They had actually only come up with one verdict on one charge, so the judge sent them out to deliberate again. The jury then came back an hour later and basically said “No, seriously, we’re deadlocked.” So the judge declared a mistrial for five of the charges, and Edwards was found not guilty on Count 3 – “Receiving campaign contributions from Bunny Mellon in excess of federal limits in 2008.” Here are the charges that were declared in the mistrial:
Count 1: Conspiring to receive and hide donations exceeding the federal limits from Mellon and Edwards’ finance chairman, the late Fred Baron;
Count 2: Receiving campaign contributions from Mellon in excess of federal limits in 2007;
Count 4: Receiving campaign contributions from Barron in excess of federal limits in 2007;
Count 5: Receiving campaign contributions from Barron in excess of federal limits in 2008; and
Count 6: Making false statements in the form of inaccurate campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission.
Basically, John Edwards got his money’s worth for his defense, and there were some people in the jury who totally bought it – that John Edwards is a sleaze who got one of his rich supporters to financially support (and help cover up) his mistress and their child, but that the money given to Rielle, Quinn and Andrew Young was never technically part of the Edwards campaign. Of course, a mistrial is not an acquittal – the prosecutors can still decide to retry Edwards, and possibly seek out a new trial strategy too, because Edwards was able to effectively explain away huge chunks of the prosecution’s case. Update: Unnamed sources claim that NC prosecutors are going to decide to NOT retry Edwards.
After the judge declared a mistrial, Edwards spoke on the courthouse steps to all of the gathered media outlets. He seems… I don’t know. The first part of his speech sounds like a stump speech, all about the majesty of the American legal system. But then the middle part is Edwards taking responsibility for “doin’ wrong.” Some of what he said: “I want to make sure that everyone hears from me and from my voice… While I do not believe that I did anything illegal, or even thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong… There is no one else responsible for my sins. I am responsible. And if I want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins … it is me and me alone.” Then he starts talking about his family, praising Cate especially (she’s been at the trial every day) and Quinn. At the very end, he goes back into stump-speech mode. Gross. Sleaze.
I might have loved it if he came out and said, “Being sleazy ain’t a crime, y’all. Suck it.”
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I wish he would just crawl back under a rock and not be heard from again. He is a lying pig, that much we all know.
+ 1
+ 2
+ 3…and he is delusional.
(I still want my campaign contribution back.)
+4
You are so right….
He’s so delusional that he actually thinks he’s going to have a career in politics after this. He makes everything so much worse with his arrogance. He needs to just disappear for a decade, lay low, maybe do some charity work. Just go away.
I love how he continually points out that no one else is responsible for his sins, as if anybody thinks so.
lol…true
Good point.
The jury in this trial is disgraceful.
Why? Because they didn’t come to a decision you agreed with?
It seems like you’re assuming that the people on the jury didn’t take their job seriously. Personally, I’d rather assume they did, and with the multitude of information they had (much of which we probably don’t even know about), came to the best decisions they could.
or…..someone in the jury got bribed. I’d rather believe that!
Don’t you find it a wee bit odd that one alt juror was caught flirting with him, and several others came to court all dressed the same?
I find it even odder that anyone knowing anything at all about this idiot lying cad would find him attractive enough to even flirt with.
yeah. i’m with justaposter. i do NOT think the jurors took this trial seriously.
@Mathpint-ITA. As always, the burden was on the prosecutor. If you guys want to yell at anyone, yell at him, not the jury. I think the jury took their jobs VERY seriously. If they didn’t, they would have just convicted him based on what they thought (all admitted they thought he was guilty) versus the EVIDENCE that was presented. A jury’s job is to consider only what is presented at trial. The prosecutor had too many unreliable witnesses and not enough evidence, period. People convicting without sufficient evidence is not a good thing, guys.Since 1973, 140 inmates on death row were exonerated. I know we’re not talking death penalty with Edwards, but incarceration of an innocent person is the ultimate travesty. I give this jury props for doing their job without bias. That being said, John Edwards is a punk-ass and a pig.
Give Kitten the prize. It’s not the jury’s job to rule by gut based on inefficient evidence. ‘I hate him’ isn’t a verdict and contempt can’t conjure up evidence that isn’t there. Yes, it’s especially maddening because he’s just another slezoid child of white male, white collar privilege who humiliated his family and treated his now late wife like the clippings left over from one of his signature $400.00 haircuts and got his mistress pregnant, but there’s not such thing as, ‘We, the jury find that the defendant is a peckerhead who had a child with Bertha Rochester, herself, so let’s beat him with sack of oranges’.
There’s no easier way to rise up the ranks than by being an unredeemable jerk, and no less likely way to lose that position. Frustrating, but true. If you want to rage, track down the prosecution, not the jury.
@Jo.. The mental picture I got from the “beat him with a sack of oranges” had me laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes, does that make me a bad person? Maybe.. Both you and Kitten are right though, if the evidence wasn’t there, which it doesn’t appear to be since there will be no retrial, then the jury can’t convict. That is the way it’s supposed to be, it is fair. You can’t throw someone in jail for be despicable, if you could then there would be far more people behind bars than walking the Earth.
It doesn’t make you a bad person for laughing at it, it makes me a bad person for imagining it.
Perhaps you say that because you’re mingling your personal/moral feelings into the process. You cannot do that as a juror. You have to base your decision on the facts and evidence presented ALONE.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe what he did to be repulsive and morally repugnant; however, based on the evidence presented, the prosecution did not uphold their case.
@bondbabe, you’re 100% right. While I was horribly disillusioned by Edwards it was clear from the beginning this shouldn’t be criminally prosecuted. The election board had conducted an investigation and determined no laws were broken, PRIOR to the trial. This info wasnt admitted in trial. While Edwards behavior is offensive on every level it didn’t rise to the level of criminal, which is why theyre not going to retry.
I think these jurors carried out their oath which was to dispassionately look at the evidence.
A couple of the jurors were on the Today Show and said they thought he was guilty but the prosecution muffed the case.
I’m not sure it matters that much anymore. All of America knows he’s a sleaze.
Between this and the Casey Anthony case, I think this country needs a good jury system overhaul.
It’s disgraceful.
He is a sleaze of the highest order. I pity his children and parents for having to put up with his lying, awful self. Watching his poor mom and dad by his side, I wondered how they feel about raising such a douche. And his daughter, Cate, having to support him. Ugh. Just ugh. I hope he goes away permanently from the public eye now.
I hope so too. He’s so out of touch, he may very well marry Quinn’s mommy and sell the photos to People or give Entertainment Tonight an exclusive.
Bella, I have been saying for awhile, that when the smoke clears, best believe him and this brawd are gonna be “one big happy family”. It’s odd though, because have we ever seen him with his child??
My friend’s dad knows JE pretty well, and when I had dinner with her and her family this topic came up… anyway the point is, they were sounding all fancy and educated and I just kept giggling at “Bunny Mellon”. I mean, come on- bunny melons!
Right??? Bunny Mellon is totally a stripper/porno name.
I swear, the older (and greater) the money, the more ridiculous the names.
He is sleazy and a terrible person. If nothing else, this is good for his eldest daughter. She has already taken on a parental role with her younger siblings, it would have been unfair for her to have had to become their full time parent, if he had been found guilty and had to serve time.
ugh.
Since the million bucks was declared to be a “gift” to Edwards, as opposed to an illegal campaign contribution, I hope the IRS is standing by to tax and fine him for not declaring it. It should be an amount big enough to hurt.
Unfortunately (for this case) there is no income tax due on gifts, and the transfer tax is the responsibility of the donor. He’s a slippery one.
“Yes, John Edwards is a sleazy MF. But being sleazy isn’t illegal.”
——————————–
Amen. I hate John Edwards but trying to put him in jail cause we hate him for cheating on his wife is ridiculous. He was given that money for non-campaign needs. That was clear from the jump. The trial was a waste of time and tax payer money.
Yep, total waste of time and money. And it was federal charges, which means we ALL got to pay for it.
I don’t like John Edwards, never did like him, didn’t like his deceased wife and don’t care what happens to him now.
But I resent the hell out of paying money to try someone for being an adulterous douche. Adultery and douchery are not illegal, and the only good thing to come out of this is that the government’s crack prosecution team couldn’t convince the jury that Edwards should do time for making time.
Mellon’s taxes should have told the tale of where that money actually went…that doesn’t seem hard to figure out, if she actually reported it. As well, the recipient’s taxes should have shown the money also…can I hope for tax evasion charges to be forthcoming?
That special place in Hell has this reservations for him…right after the IRS has is done with him.
Douchebag. I was so touched when a witness testified that his cancer-stricken wife chased him across an airfield to slap the crap out of him -what a heartbroken trooper she was- may she rest in peace. If I was the daughter I would have not been able to listen at the trial every day and go home with Daddy and smile.
It makes me nauseous how much damage this one man has done to everybody close to him. The poor kids, and Elizabeth.
His daughter did leave the courtroom in tears when this testimony was being heard.
Yet another example of why normal people don’t have respect for politcians. They all have their noses in the trough.
creep.
I don’t think that he gets “it.” His schtupping leads me to believe that he thinks he could still possibly be involved in politics, and that people would support him. He is out of touch.
I believe he thinks that since he was, for the most-part, found not guilty, that he was also somehow forgiven for the moral infractions as well, and therefore can continue his political career. He just DOES NOT GET IT!
If nothing else, I’m glad he has been exposed and never reached any serious position of power, and never will.
I feel very sorry for all of his children.
I think this is a case of the prosecutors over-reaching and relying on a guy like Andrew Young as their star witness. He used a lot of the money they accused Edwards of taking to build his dream house! They can’t have it both ways, idiots. No wonder the jury couldn’t make sense of it all.
Edwards’ political career is dead. He knows this. He bleated on about helping children in the future. The least he can do after the scars his own will be carrying. His father looks drained, the poor man.
I always get him mixed up with that medium guy on tv.
I can’t stand this lying pig, but I hope this whole saga is finally over for his daughter Kate’s sake.
It is really sad that Kate’s father’s garbage over shadowed her wedding and the ability for her to grieve her mother’s death. Kate acts like the stable parent in that family and her father acts like the selfish, impulsive, fame whoring teenager.
Even worse — one of her bridesmaid’s babies died DURING Cate’s wedding. After losing her older brother as a teenager; dealing with her dad being absent and essentially replacing her brother by having two more kids; her mom’s intense jealousy over John and her subsequent death; and John’s affairs and all his political nonsense, I feel a lot of empathy for her. That girl has been through way too much.
Unbelievable. I didn’t hear about the death of her bridesmaid’s baby. That is terrible.
I don’t think it made the news — and good on Cate for that. Honestly, I feel bad bringing it up because it’s so terribly sad. My heart goes out to her.
Just heard that crazyb*tch (Reille) is releasing her memoir later this month, as if we haven’t ever heard the story of the homewreckin wh*ore before…when will these people just go away?
I ditto your comment a million times over. How anyone could spend one penny on this witch’s book is beyond my comprehension.
But what about poor ‘Johnny’?
Had the Enquirer not broken the story, the Dem party could have been at the mercy of flighty freaky Rielle. Edwards’ intent was key: to do whatever was necessary to hide his dirty secrets. It only started with “gifts” —that wouldn’t have been gifted if he weren’t running for President (ie, campaign contributions).
I can’t even with this narcissist.
And Dem who even speaks to his nasty ass, much less associates with him professionally, I have no use for.
Outcomes like this tend to reinforce my atheism.