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John
Edwards lied when he denied his affair. Now
he’s asking the nation to take his word
that he’s revealed everything.
But
the strange behavior of Edwards and those
around him, coupled with the backlog of other
tabloid allegations, raise many unanswered
questions.
Three
weeks ago, for instance, the National
Enquirer confronted John Edwards at 2:40 a.m.
leaving his mistress' hotel room in Beverly
Hills, allegedly after visiting their
so-called love child. Shortly afterward,
FOXNews.com confirmed Edwards indeed had been
escorted from a hotel bathroom by security
guards who witnessed his sprint from
reporters.
In
the days that followed, Edwards dismissed all
related questions, consistently saying he
wouldn't respond to "tabloid lies."
Now,
he has answered the biggest question
surrounding the reports by admitting to an
extra-marital affair with a filmmaker, Rielle
Hunter, in 2006.
He
still, however, denies claims that he
fathered her child and all knowledge of his
supporters' financial support of her and the
former staff member who has claimed to be the
father.
"These
are all things in supermarket tabloids, which
make the most outrageous allegations every
week," he told ABC News. "We’ll
just start with where the source of this
information comes."
In
this case, the source was right on one thing.
Ex-Mistress:
No Paternity Test
In
2007, reporters first started to question the
relationship between Edwards and Hunter, who
produced video "webisodes" for his
campaign. The New York Post had published a
gossip item about a presidential candidate
with a New York City girlfriend and another
reporter had written about the abrupt
disappearance of the videos from the Edwards
campaign web site.
The
National Enquirer in December discovered a
then-pregnant Hunter, who had moved from New
York to a few miles from the Edwards
presidential campaign headquarters in North
Carolina. She was driving a car registered to
Andrew Young, a top Edwards aide, and living
in a gated community a few streets away from
where Young lived with his wife and three
children, the paper reported.
Shortly
afterward Young claimed, through his
attorney, that he was the father of
Hunter’s child, and that he had left the
Edwards campaign and sought privacy as he
worked to heal his family. The Enquirer and
others have reported a number of facts that,
while not proving paternity, indicate a
complicated effort to finance and hide the
pregnant woman.
Reports
stated Hunter moved within blocks of Andrew
Young, his wife, Cheri, and their children,
even sharing meals. When questioned by the
Enquirer, Hunter first denied her identity
and then refused all questions. Andrew Young
was also coy about his identity and blocked
the Enquirer reporter's car in his driveway,
while Cheri Young called 911. No charges were
filed against the reporter, Alan Butterfield.
Within
months, Hunter and the Youngs had moved to
the West Coast. Enquirer reporters say that
they all moved into the same house in a gated
section of Montecito, an exclusive section of
Santa Barbara, Calif., and one of the
nation's most expensive communities.
FOXNews.com
confirmed that public records connect Cheri
Young to the rented home worth approximately
$4 million. Since leaving New York, no public
records exist of Hunter living anywhere,
however, when her daughter, Frances Hunter,
was born, she signed the birth certificate in
Santa Barbara on Feb. 27.
The
space for "father" was left blank.
Financing
Two Families
As
for reports that Edwards is paying "hush
money" to Hunter and Young, Edwards has
stated that he never paid money to anyone to
keep them quiet about the affair.
A
source close to Edwards’ former campaign
confirmed to FOX News reports that Fred
Baron, a Dallas lawyer and former campaign
finance chairman for Edwards, secretly
provided financial help to both Hunter and
Young. He apparently paid with his own funds
and has told other news outlets Edwards did
not know about the arrangement.
Edwards
said he learned of the payments through
reporters and that he "had no
knowledge" of the payouts outside of
that.
The
payments reportedly have been towering —
$15,000 a month to Hunter, according to
reports, plus other payments to Young.
The
Youngs previously lived in an upscale, gated
North Carolina community just south of Chapel
Hill, renting a property then owned by a top
Edwards donor, former NBA star Eric Montross.
He told FOXNews.com the Youngs paid market
rates and the arrangement was "totally
free of any ties to the political
campaign."
Multiple
calls left to the owner of the California
house have not been returned.
Paternity
Questions
The
most prominent unanswered question remains,
who is Frances Hunter's father?
The
National Enquirer published a grainy picture
that appears to show Edwards holding a child,
and the tabloid says it is confident the
child is his.
Edwards
said Friday he’s happy to take a paternity
test to establish he is not the father of
Frances Quinn Hunter. The National Enquirer,
which stands by its “love child” claim,
has repeatedly called on Edwards to submit to
a test, and now Rielle Hunter's sister has
joined that call.
"As
far as being the father of Hunter's love
child, you might as well go all the way now,
Johnny Boy," the newspaper wrote on its
Web site Friday night. "Submit to a DNA
test.”
Both
Edwards and his cancer-stricken wife,
Elizabeth Edwards, say he is putting it all
on the table in an attempt to move past the
allegations and innuendo that until Friday
existed mostly in tabloids, blogs and
political rumor mills.
In
his written statement, John Edwards said
Friday he used the fact that the tabloid
stories "contained many falsities"
to deny them in the first place.
"But
being 99 percent honest is no longer
enough."
In
a statement released on the Daily Kos,
Edwards’ wife said "our private
matter" could no longer stay private,
"because of a recent string of hurtful
and absurd lies in a tabloid publication,
because of a picture falsely suggesting that
John was spending time with a child it
wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our
marriage."
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On
August 10, 1977, 24-year-old postal employee David
Berkowitz is arrested and charged with being the
"Son of Sam," the serial killer who
terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing
six young people and wounding seven others with a
.44-caliber revolver. Because Berkowitz generally
targeted attractive young women with long brown hair,
hundreds of young women had their hair cut short and
dyed blond during the time he terrorized the city.
Thousands more simply stayed home at night. After his
arrest, Berkowitz claimed that demons and a black
Labrador retriever owned by a neighbor named Sam had
ordered him to commit the killings.
Isaac
Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and
musician whose relentless "Theme From
Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards,
died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County
Sheriff's Office said. He was 65.
One
of the largest and most photographed arches
in Arches National Park has collapsed.