Edwards channeled a young girl during a trial

Edwards has been in custody since his arrest on Sept. Jury selection was held in Sampson County and jurors are being transported to New Hanover County for the trial. Throughout the trial, the judge will allow the young victim to testify with her mother despite Edwards' attorney asking otherwise.

She was tethered to the ground so that she couldn't stand up," Assistant District Attorney Lance Oehrlein said during opening statements. The assistant district attorney showed the jury the chain that was used, explaining it was used as a choke collar so that as the victim moved, it got tighter.

Since the abduction, the victim's mother testified her daughter doesn't want to play outside anymore and is on guard and wary of men in public. The victim's mother said her daughter continues to have nightmares, reliving what happened. The victim's mother said that she and her two daughters were playing in their yard in the Royal Palms Community on Sept. She said her son was doing homework inside the residence, and repeatedly called for her to help him. When she went inside to help, she says her other daughter yelled that a man was taking her sister.

Master Deputy Hudson with the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office was called to the stand by the state, and said he was the first to respond to a reported kidnapping. Detective Gina Jones with the sheriff's office said she arrived and found a crowded scene in the neighborhood with neighbors and law enforcement around the victim's home.

Jones later escorted the family to the hospital after the victim was located. A neighbor in the community, Morley Gutierrez, also took the stand Wednesday, and said that he saw a man on a moped leaving the community with a child. After a boy told him he was looking for his sister, the neighbor said he was going to follow the man onto Carolina Beach Road. The man said he was not able to follow the vehicle for long due to heavy traffic in the area. Edwards was stopped twice after an alert about the abduction was issued.

Jurors watched a recording of that interview in court Wednesday. In it, Hudson asks Edwards what he did that day, and eventually asks if he knows anything about the missing girl. Edwards denied knowing anything about the incident even after detectives said they had eyewitnesses give a suspect description similar to Edwards.

District Attorney Ben David said the victim's rescue will be discussed at length in court on Thursday.

Most people, including self-regarding gay and straight men, do not respond well to public humiliation. Ms Edwards' reaction was extreme and shocking, but in fairness her mental state was probably pretty shaky by that point. This whole story is sadly tawdry. I am not having the best day today, but thank God I am not John Edwards.

I was going to post that,r Susan Sarandon get get another Oscar easily for that scene-a dying woman exposing her cancer ravaged breast to her staff after learning of her politician husband's affair She was a bitter, self important bore who couldn't let it go. Edwards was so stupid to get involved with Rielle Hunter, she has always wanted the spotlight.

He would have been better off picking a woman less aggressive and obviously using birth control. Who are these fraus invading DL? Are you kidding, Cinderella? These are childish, fairy tale ambitions. Why would any woman in still think prince charming is going to come along and hand them a life of "happily every after. So what's the solution, R96? Chain people together with leg irons who can't stand each other?

Why would you eve WANT someone who doesn't want you? Move on. Does anyone know how to have a difference of opinion anymore without continually calling other posters "fraus"? This place has gone to shit. You can't make someone love and care about you. Melodramatic displays only make people resent and pity you even more.

This is old news. By their account she was a turbo cunt. Nobody has said she was a Saint. However, it is ridiculous to argue that she shouldn't have felt betrayed and upset or that he had every right to do what he did because he no longer was attracted to her.

If he was unhappy, he should have left the marriage before he ran for office. He was careless, reckless and mishandled nearly everything about this affair. John Edwards is a cipher. If you "supported" John Edwards during his presidential campaign chances are you were actually supporting ideas and answers that came from Elizabeth.

One striking example is that when John Edwards was asked what his favorite movie was he answered, "Dr. It's a great answer, but it turns out he'd never even seen the movie. Elizabeth told him to answer that way. A lot of straight men, not just politicians, owe their careers to their wives-- even now. Everything he did was wrong in regard to his wife and mistress but NONE of that should matter in this specific trial.

The ONLY thing that should matter are the reasons the checks were written and if they were or were not considered to be a campaign contribution. Unfortunately the marriage seemed based on the usual grotesque superficialities. Money, looks, status, privilege and plans. Real talk. It was a sado-masochistic duel not fueled by mutual affection but instead powered by the addiction to status, money and their co-joined pursuit of political power and prestige.

He's craven, seedy, vain, and looks disturbingly like Burt Ward, Robin, from the old Batman tv series. Although the wife was clearly frau'ing around yes, it is now a verb on the afternoon fraumedia, punishing him, I think he did drive her to her grave.

Just stop dickin' around, Robin! His poor daughter. I'd probably cut Dad down to a single hot toddy over Christmas, and ignore his calls the rest of the year. If anything, Americans should learn from this trial that most politicians male and female are predatory narcissists.

Watch where you sling that pussy, rich girls She kind of reminds me of socialite Betty Broderick, that woman who killed her ex-husband, a prominent attorney, and his new wife.

She was scorned because she stood by him during the lean years, had four children with him and then he dumped her for a younger, hotter woman. She couldn't handle the fact that she lost her lifestyle as "Mrs. Broderick" and went insane. The checks from Bunny Mellon were not made out to the campaign. They were given to a decorator friend who then wrote checks to Andrew Young's wife in her maiden name.

Edwards said he covered up the affair to prevent Elizabeth from finding out about it. However, if it can be shown that Elizabeth already knew at the time Mellon sent the money, then it is reasonable to assume he was trying to hide the affair from the voters. If his intention was to mislead the voters, then the money regardless of how he got it was being used for campaign purposes and is therefore a campaign contribution. There's nothing in that airport story remotely relevant to the charges pending, including his character.

That shit was all about Elizabeth. I can't believe the judge didn't throw this out. Bunny Mellon, by all accounts, gave him the money to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do with it. Rielle Hunter is a fucking dog. She must have the tightest vadge in America, because she's neither bright nor attractive. This is like Al Capone being convicted for tax evasion, except even Capone was guilty of that. Edwards is going to be convicted for being a horrible person rather than a criminal.

I agree with those who think the trial should center around the misuse of campaign funds. I also think that Edwards is somewhat culpable for the assistant misusing funds. He was the "CEO" of his campaign. The assistant should not have been let off so easily and should have fried as well.

That said, the focus of the board is on Elizabeth's actions. I am not a Frau. I just want to get that out there because I can sympathize with her actions. She was more than a politicians wife. She drank the Kool Aid and really believed that he could change the world and that she would be by his side as a partner -- both as a wife and activist.

Her professional and personal mirror shattered with the revelation of his affair. On the personal side. She gave up a lot for him. The younger kids were born when she was a much older woman.

This kind of pregnancy requires a lot of medical assistance -- so much so that it takes a toll on ones body. To her it probably wasn't just an affair.

To her it was probably viewed as rejection and most likely played into the insecurities of having breasts removed and the feelings of inadequacy and ugliness that for many women come with this surgery. Imagine standing-by someone and actually being a major force behind his ambitions and having him cheat with a someone who can destroy your dream as well.

Oh, and her case, the person he has cheated with is younger and doesn't bear the scars of breast cancer. He knew his wife was terminal. He could have waited. False, R Many men cheat when their wive's are seriously ill. It's actually quite common. Even if they love their wives, many cheat just to get a respite from all the sickness, upheaval, anxiety and depression at home. At the level of a national presidential campaign you don't hire amateurs. These people were professionals who had to know at some point that Edwards had no chance of winning and that his conduct would destroy anything resembling a shot at the White House.

So they allowed themselves to be "used. They ran all over the country, they intrigued, plotted schemed and blackmailed Edwards about a sex tape. They get no free pass from me. I am not that stupid as to feel like Edwards was the lone bad guy here and everyone else was a victim. Many married men cheat and father out of wedlock children. Their wives often get very angry, and scream, and yell, and go nuts on them. This is not new. Bit with this soap opera, the drama was played out on a national stage with all the minor players grabbing for a piece of the spotlight.

These campaign aides were despicable people, IMO. Some of you need to open your eyes. It was Andrew Young who "found" the sex tape and exploited it's existence. Edwards is slime it is true, but he's not the first terrible huband to wrong a sick wife. What makes this situation unique to me, is the feeding frenzy that starts with the campaign aides. The kind of people who would participate, then slime him for "making " them participate. Every single one of them had the option of quitting.

Only one did to my knowledge. Elizabeth Edwards wasn't the only betrayed lover, nor was she the angriest or most vengeful.

Oh, dear. And watch your apostrophes, see your r The aides were certainly despicable and had none of them agreed to go along with the cheating, lying, cover-ups, it wouldn't have happened. There is no debate that he had help in all of what he did. But ultimately, he gave the orders and he should take responsibility for all of the finances. I would also point out that it appears that the aides were young and probably not nearly as experienced as they should have been for someone running for President.

People who surround themselves in the workplace with a lot of young, inexperienced staff often are ridiculously controlling and many times hiding something. Edwards didn't want anyone smarter or more savvy than himself around, which should have been a red flag that he would not have made a good Chief Executive. R Where do you live? It is not a personal failing - it's a socialization process.

We need to stop raising our girls to think that their futures and their dreams and aspirations must be lived through men. Women are entitled to have their own fucking aspirations that have sweet FA to do with dudes. That was what I meant when I noted the middle-upper class phenomenon I noted above and pondered as interesting. As someone later said on this thread - it appears that Elizabeth lived her dreams through John - I find that a very astute observation. And I further think we socialize men to carry the burden of those dreams - there own and their female partners - and many men, including evidently John Edwards - are just not up for that.

If you want women to be different, then we need to start raising them different. Oh dear, Mary R Unless you want me to rap you on the knuckles with my ruler, next time kindly capitalize the "r" when referring to another post, and please refrain from starting sentences with "and.

That's the saddest aspect of the whole thing. That anyone -- Dem or Repub-- who know they are weak, flawed, have skeletons in the closet-- would actually run for President! Yet those types do it all the time. The fact that he pissed off a lot of his NC constituents by frequently failing to show up to work for a position he was elected to hasn't helped him.

You have to be a megalomaniac or a narcissist to want to run for president, R And John Edwards is both in spades. R68, so true - Elizabeth's shirt removing incident has absolutely nothing to do with the campaign money charges against John Edwards. It definitely appears that the proscecution is deliberately trying to sway the jury against John Edwards by bringing in emotionally charged material that is unrelated.

And those in this thread who say you hope John is found guilty of these bogus charges which have been brought against no other politician, you are very pathetic in your misguided hatred. The money consisted of gifts from Fred Baron and Bunny Melon who gave the money as gifts, not as campaign contributions to the campaign. R, Betty Broderick is a perfect example of a misguided woman who thinks her husband and the world owes her a psychological and financial position in life for her whole life and that the position can never be taken away from her - she feels it is her due.

Let'sbe honest and I'm saying this as a straight woman, EE committed that great crime in our society of letting herself go. I'm not talking about because of the cancer. I read a magazine article about the Edwards in , and it was all, look at how down to earth his wife is. Which really means, you expected something different didn't you, an Anne Romney or Jackie O type. Not that it would have kept him from cheating but it seems to be the underlying implication always with her.

Everyone implying, what did she expect? Bunny Mellon - who contributed most of this money to John Edwards - had some kind of an odd attraction to him.

She has said publicly that her donations were personal and not for his campaign. She's a very old lady but incredibly wealthy. But frankly I believe she found him hot.

She was also a very good friend of Jackie Kennedy. It was to her esate that Jackie spents months at a time, for years, after JFK's death. The estate in Middleburg is so large that Jackie could ride her horses as much as she wanted - in privacy.

I believe the shirt removal was some kind of an emotional exposure regarding her double mascectomy. John Edwards, is nominated by the Democrats.

Whether or not he becomes president is purely academic because Elizabeth has what it takes to become America's First Lady on her own. She doesn't need the White House; her memoir of bereavement and invalidism pulsates with so much lugubrious hysteria that she's a shoo-in to become the Great White Oprah.

She had the best possible training for political wifehood. She was a Navy brat, accustomed to moving here and there and everywhere, meeting loads of people, and then moving again and meeting loads more. Her girlhood was dominated by the dreaded "Fitness Report," which all officers get when they come up for promotion. The conduct of a man's family could make or break him. We all had as our first allegiance the professional reputations of our fathers.

She met John Edwards while they were both law students at the University of North Carolina and married him in when she was 28 and he was Settling down in Raleigh, they had two children, Wade born in and Cate in In , while en route to meet up with his parents at their beach house, Wade was killed in a weather-related auto accident and Elizabeth fell apart. Her morbid excesses began with the sign she posted on the door of her son's room ordering the cleaning woman not to vacuum or change the sheets: "I wanted the room to smell like Wade as long as it would.

For months afterwards, TV and music were banned from the Edwards home as they gathered with friends each evening in the dark, quiet family room to talk about Wade. It sounds as if all of Raleigh was involved in the grieving process, including perfect strangers that Elizabeth drafted into service: "If, in a restaurant, I felt Wade about to overtake me, I would go to the restroom and take out his picture. If someone, anyone, was there, I showed them the picture and told them about my boy.

One day at the supermarket she happened to see a display of Wade's favorite soft drink and fell into what sounds like a fit: " I sat sprawled in the soda aisle at the grocery store and cried uncontrollably She even roped in the gravediggers, giving the cemetery grounds staff presents on Wade's birthday. She visited his grave every day and read the Bible aloud "to the place on the ground. She enjoyed tending his grave because it reminded her of cleaning up his room, but it wasn't enough, so she started tending other graves of children who had died years and decades earlier, talking to them all the while, because they had no mothers to clean for them.

One day she washed some dead child's muddy cross. Isn't all this affair stuff beign revisited because the defense wants to show the money was to hide the affair from his wife, not the voters? That would make it something else than a violation of campaign fund laws. So it's John Edwards' lawyers bringing it up.

She went what can only be called berserk the day Wade's grave was violated. The site contained a huge metal angel, and someone had tried unsuccessfully to drag it away. She began screaming and called the police, demanding that they come out and dust the angel for fingerprints.

As she waited, it began to rain, so she fetched umbrellas and old quilts from her trunk to cover the angel to preserve the prints. When the police got there, they told her that prints could not be lifted from the statue's surface. She was inconsolable: "He was in my every thought, in my empty arms, in my weary, beaten heart. He was also in her computer. The only modern touch in this neo-Victorian threnody is the enormous correspondence she conducted with other bereaved parents at various grief.

She is the consummate online junkie who Googles every subject that pops into her head, so this may be where she read up on how to get pregnant at the age of Mirabile dictu, it worked. She had not only one baby, but two, becoming the Fertility Queen of the election, the year-old mother of six-year-old Emma Claire and four-year-old Jack. How did she do it? Do not look for the answer in this book. Considering how garrulous she is on the subject of bereavement, I expected an Ovariad on the subject of fertility treatments, but all she says is: "Tests, appointments, procedures, failures.

It was not until the week of Wade's eighteenth birthday [January ] that the shots and medications and good fortune were translated into a pregnancy. Then she makes a mistake no lawyer should make, the bane of the witness under cross-examination: qui s'excuse s'accuse. She turns defensive and starts to overexplain: "I speak less of this not because it was unimportant," she avers, but for the sake of those women still undergoing fertility treatments, "women who had tried and failed to get pregnant, or women who had gotten pregnant but were unable to carry the pregnancy to term False hope is a bitter poison I could not encourage it.

She must have Googled her husband's Wikipedia entry that claims she used surrogate mothers for both births. I disregarded this in view of Wikipedia's way with errors, but the Slate article by Suz Redfearn claiming that she used donor eggs is carefully researched and well-reasoned. One thing is certain: the questions are not going to stop. If the Democrats hope to lure voters away from the Religious Right they will insist on knowing if Edwards has any leftover embryonic stem cells in his closet.

Presuming they conceived in the good old-fashioned way, another question arises: How did they manage with their daughter sleeping in their bedroom?

When her brother was killed, year-old Cate lapsed into a frightening regressive state and refused to be alone in her room. The author is vague on dates, but she says that Cate slept with them for two years -- the same time span of the two conceptions. Even more intriguing is how John, who was representing the bereaved parents whose daughter was swallowed by a swimming pool drain, managed to get into begetting mode while caught up in the family man's garden of voluptuous delights: coaching soccer, playing Santa Claus, running charities, volunteering at Cate's school, and performing community service.

Mentor me, baby. Gimme some P Elizabeth the outgoing Navy brat was in her element, but continental Teresa Heinz Kerry most definitely was not. It's obvious that the two women couldn't stand each other, and small wonder: they were Mata Hari and Mary Poppins; Garbo and Charo. They also have very different views of children, being Martinet and Permissive; Elizabeth's tortuous assurance that she didn't mind it a bit when Teresa yanked little Jack's thumb out of his mouth is one of the most determinedly agreeable passages ever penned.

Two weeks before the end of the campaign, she found a lump in her breast that turned out to be malignant. Whether it was caused by the massive doses of female hormones she took is not known, and she wouldn't admit it if it were, but some of her passing comments betray a desperate need to convince herself that there is no connection between her fertility treatments and her cancer. What she hates about wearing a lymph-node drain: "the children had to keep more distance than they were used to.

She also gives herself away by denying in advance what she doesn't want people to think, thereby planting the forbidden idea in their heads, as when she brings up Pat Conroy's novel, The Great Santini. They're not all like that, she insists. Her father was "as far from Bull Meecham as any military man can be. Oh, sometimes he would wake us up with a bugle -- because he thought it was funny. Sometimes he would 'inspect' our rooms -- but I never remember anything awful happening.

Recommendation: Bust her father to cabin boy. It goes to answering what did she know and when did she know it. That is a central question in determining why Edwards tried to hide the affair. He says he was hiding the affair from Elizabeth. But if she already knew, then he must must have been hiding it for another reason.

Hahaha, oh my sides. You must have been living under a rock when the story first broke of the affair and when she died. She was treated as a living saint in the media. Interesting trashing of her book. When she wrote and promoted that book, despite all that had happened to her, that was the point at which I thought she was nuts.

And of course I had no interest in reading it. Seemed to me she was shining a light on just what she should be putting behind herself. But that seemed to be her problem. From the beginning, when he was VP candidate, I always felt something was off about her.

Her doudiness had an edge of craziness to it- madness- no need to look that bad, hair stringy and tangled, no makeup, overweight. Just did not make sense.

Even Hillary, who clearly does not care about her appearance- makes an effort- I love her, but her taste is awful. I did not know of her troubles after her son's death- I wondered why she did not go back to work in fact- or most important seek therapy. Anyway, no one here knows how difficult their marriage was. Clearly it was troubled- would have to be.

And John is a very good looking guy, successful etc. It's just a big sad mess. And yeah, if Bunny Mellon's money were personal gifts- well that is not campaign money. If they establish that-then this case is toast. Lord knows the Reagans got millions in "personal gifts" from their hyper wealthy CA friends Annebergs et al.

She is a disgusting excuse for a human being. They belong together. For God's sake, you think Mellon and the other person that shoveled over tons of money didn't know it must have been for solving something personal! I bet they knew about the affair. They knew they couldn't legally give that much as a campaign contribution so what did they think the money was for. They knew the Edwards and that they were not poor people so wouldn't they want to know why they wanted the money for any personal reasons.

Too easy to say they were idiots enamored with "handsome" Johnny. They are scurrilous people willing to participate in duping the public and should also be punished in some way. You don't know what it is like to have your whole world turned upside down by an affair and you certainly don't know the pain and utter devastation of losing a child. Until you do know you should shut the fuck up. Few of you do know what goes on in a real family with two adults and children and the faith, hope, and love people put into it.

Only to be kicked in the teeth not only when you are sick and dying but after all you've been through together. Someone upthread commented about Elizabeth "carrying on" after the loss of her son. I've never said this before but I think now is the perfect opportunity.

I hope you die in a grease fire! You people get worse every year with the way you talk about women. It's US that support you, you dumb motherfuckers. You are your own worst enemies. I love snark. I live my life by snark, but it's been beyond that here for a long time. Fuck you! Calm down R Elizabeth Edwards was a multiple millionaire when she lost her child. I am 58 years old and know several couples who have lost children. Often it breaks up the marriage, but in no case do I know of anyone going off the rail quite like Elizabeth did.

She is also a smart woman and she knew the risks of taking high dose hormones. This family had a tragedy that turned into a fiasco-a family with many blessings. You should also know that many gay men have endured far more hardship than this family I lost half of all my friends, some very dear friends within a 5 year period , and also ended a relationship.

Ever wonder how that might feel? It was surreal. I am sure others have had their problems too. Calm down. Fact is, the Edwards, including Elizabeth, were and are hot messes. We are lucky they did not make it to the White House. Probably because none of the women you know had a husband who was running for President and whose personal life was exposed to the entire world.

Oh, rightwhen JRE wasn't skulking off at a. No, apparently not. I posted a photo of him earlier on this thread because I think he is kind of cute and one of the only decent people in this story. He tried to tell Edwards to stop the affair before it got out of hand, but Edwards refused to listen and he quit.

I think he is now married and expecting a child. I believe he now works for the Democratic Party in New York. R3 doesn't seem to realize that the average member of the public who is cheated on doesn't have the affair become public knowledge and discussed all over the news. That he was NOT honest and above-board about his having "lost that loving feling"?

That, in point of fact, he was a liar and an adulterer who not only denied his baby's paternity but had his friend claim it, thereby making the other wife into a public fool?

You have a serious problem recognizing that the facts of this situation do not parallel those of your life. John Edwards took on poverty as a main issue, as did Robert F. Kennedy did. R, believe and interpret as you want, but John Edwards was by Elizabeth's side the whole time in her last months. And John wanted to continue to live with Elizabeth during her last year or two, but Elizabeth wanted him out of the house toward the end.

R, the point is that although a husband is part of the family, he is not a blood relative like other relatives and children are, and the husband can reject the wife and leave at any time and at whim. Spouses are family even though they are not related by blood just like adopted children become family.

R, the problem now is that people don't know whether Edwards genuinely cared about poverty or whether he was just doing it for political gain. What I don't understand is the ease at which all these people decided to have Eddie run for President. If they were all comfortable this mess would be protected from exposure then just think what other messes out there exist with no exposure, yet.

R, some women make the mistake of thinking their husband will always love them, no matter what. In reality, there is no assurance the husband will continue to love the wife and the husband's love is certainly not owed to the woman in the mind of many men.

I believe the affair in late and early took place partially because of the intense tedium of waiting on the part of John Edwards for the campaign to get in full swing. I think John Edwards was very bored waiting for the full campaign to begin and fell prey to Rielle during this lull. People like Josh Brumberger begged John Edwards to stop before it got out of hand and told him that Rielle was unstable.

He refused to listen. John visited the baby at the Beverly Hilton in July - one can understand John wanting to see and be with the baby a bit. Boy, this Rielle character must cast quite a spell to turn John Edwards into a lovelorn swain -- and a father too.

Again, it comes down to the fact that Edwards ran for President with all of this going on and with the full knowledge and awareness that this could implode had his campaign ran all the way to the White House. Coming on the heels of the worst President this country has ever been dealt with, Edwards could have truly put not only the country, but the democratic party in serious jeopardy.

I'm trying to think how someone who would truly care for the citizens of this country could rationalize making the decision he did, but I can think of a damn reason other than pure selfishness. Those of you blaming Elizabeth or shedding tears for John are looking to give the man respect that he clearly never gave any of you. Farmer filed the lawsuit in November , eight months before Maxwell's arrest, alleging she was sexually trafficked at age 16 as part of "Epstein and Maxwell's organized ring of procuring young women and girls for sex.

At a detention hearing for Maxwell in July, Farmer spoke to the court via video link to implore the judge in the criminal case to deny Maxwell's request to be released on bail. Farmer's civil lawsuit was placed on hold in June while she presented her claims to the Epstein Victims' Compensation Fund, the voluntary restitution program that began operating earlier this year.

In October, Farmer accepted an offer from the fund, which requires her to drop all pending litigation against the estate and any former employees of Epstein. But when Farmer attempted to do just that, Maxwell's legal team resisted. Maxwell needs a signed and executed release so that she has a legally enforceable document to seek dismissal of any such claim," Menninger wrote, arguing that assurances from Farmer's lawyers in correspondence are "insufficient.

Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Farmer described Maxwell's demands as "perplexing" and "indefensible" and "a clear attempt to stall Ms. Farmer's ability to receive the compensation that she has been offered through the Victims' Compensation Program," according to court records. Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman in a letter this week that Farmer had offered to provide Maxwell a copy of the settlement agreement with only the amount of the monetary offer blacked out, but she said Maxwell's lawyers rejected that attempt to reach a compromise.

Dan Abrams, chief legal analyst for ABC News, said that Maxwell's unusual effort to obtain information about Farmer's confidential monetary settlement with the estate as a condition of dismissing the case, should be viewed in the context of Maxwell's pending criminal trial and a potential cross-examination of Farmer.