Still No Verdict Reached After Fifth Day in Edwards Case
Jurors in charge of deciding the fate for the former US Sen. John Edwards will be involved in a very detailed review of the money that was spent by one of his supporters on his ex-mistress as well as political aide.
The jury in North Carolina was asked to look more closely at a total of 20 different pieces of evidence over the fifth day of deliberations of whether or not Edwards broke federal election laws during the time that he was running for president. Judge Catherine Eagles has asked the group of 12 jurors whether or not they preferred to have all the trial exhibits at their disposal, to which one male juror said, “Sounds like a good idea.”
It is been almost 4 weeks of testimony now with hundreds of exhibits to help determine the final outcome of whether Edwards conspired to use close to $1 million from two separate supporters to hide his pregnant mistress during the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
A lot of the evidence that was requested by the jury outlines the private plane flights as well as high-end accommodation that was funded by campaign finance chairman Fred Baron.
Prosecutors allege that Edwards looked for money from his funders in an attempt to protect his political image to the public while the defense argued that the payments were personal gifts that were intended to protect his wife, who was sick with cancer, from discovering the fact that he had gotten his mistress pregnant. Edwards’ wife died in 2010.
Jurors asked to see proof of a handwritten note from one of his funders to the other that read, “Old Chinese saying: use cash, not credit cards!” as well as the defense chart that outlines how much money was received from the funders.
Also on the list of evidence is a video of 2008 ABC Nightline interview in which Edwards falsely denies fathering the child of his mistress and claims to not know about donor money having been used to hide this affair.
