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John Edwards lied repeatedly about his affair and made subsequent attempts to cover it up, acknowledges his lawyer. However, he did it to spare his wife, his defense attorney Abbe Lowell said.
During a hearing last week before U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles in Greensboro, N.C. the attorney said, “Yes, Mr. Edwards is making 18,267 false and exculpatory statements. No one is going to deny that Mr. Edwards lied and lied and lied and lied.”
However, Edward who once was John Kerry’s running mate and later sought to be the Democrats’ presidential candidate, had lied for the right reasons, argues Lowell. The Senator lied mainly to prevent more pain and anguish to his ailing wife, who was suffering from metastatic breast cancer that ultimately claimed her life.
Prosecutors do not share Lowell’s views and say that John Edwards lied, in an attempt to save his political career, for a verification of his recklessness would have ruined it.
The defense has said that the prosecutors are trying to criminalize an issue that was a matter best left to Edwards’ ‘family and to God,’ Politico reported. Defense attorney Allison Van Laningham in her opening statement said, that Edwards may have committed many sins, but that he did not commit any crime.
In a highly publicized trial Edwards, is charged with six counts of felony, four involving his supposedly, acceptance of $933,000 in illegal campaign contributions. He is also charged with conspiracy and making false statements.
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The government asserts that Edwards intentionally used the donation money, to pay for the expenses of his mistress Rielle Hunter and to hide their extramarital affair and to ensure that the voters did not get to know about the daughter they had conceived.
Prosecutors have alleged that, “The charges against John Edwards in this case flow from his knowing and willful violation of the federal campaign finance laws during his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.”
However, Edwards defense team insists that money was not for campaign use, but were personal gifts that his well-wishers, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a 101-year-old Virginia banking heiress, and the late Fred Baron, a Texas lawyer, had given him. The money was meant to be used for the purpose for which it had been used.
Senator Edwards wife separated from him in January 2010 and died in December of the same year.
