John Edwards: From Mill Town Trial Lawyer to a Sinner but Not a Criminal

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John Edwards was born Johnny Reid Edwards in South Carolina in 1953 and grew up in a North Carolina mill town, where his father worked in a textile mill and his mother ran an antique business and carried mail. The first in his family to attend college, he studied textile technology at North Carolina State and law at the University of North Carolina, where he met Elizabeth. As a trial lawyer he won a multimillion dollar verdict over the drug Antabuse, set a North Carolina precedent on informed consent in a cerebral palsy case, and in 1996 secured a $25 million settlement for Valerie Lakey, a 5 year old injured by a defective Sta-Rite pool drain cover. That year his 16 year old son Wade died when strong winds swept his Jeep off a highway.

Edwards left law and in 1998 unseated Senator Lauch Faircloth by more than 80,000 votes, deposed Monica Lewinsky during the Clinton impeachment trial, and became John Kerry's running mate in 2004. His 2008 campaign centered on poverty and his Two Americas theme, while he also held a reported $500,000 a year consulting job with Fortress Investment Group. In 2007 tabloids reported an affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter; aide Andrew Young falsely claimed to be the father of her child, and Edwards admitted paternity in early 2010. Indicted in 2011 over more than $1 million from donors used to hide Hunter, he called himself a sinner but not a criminal; a 2012 jury acquitted him on one count and deadlocked on the rest, and prosecutors dropped the case.

• Wade had been honored at the White House as a finalist in an essay contest about voting with his father.
• Edwards publicly apologized for his Senate vote authorizing the Iraq War.
• Fortress held stakes in subprime lenders foreclosing on Hurricane Katrina victims, and Edwards divested and set up a rescue fund.
• The trial turned on whether the primary purpose of the donors' money was to influence the election.
• After the case he founded a medical malpractice law firm in North Carolina with his daughter Kate.