Edwards Not Guilty on One Count, Hung Jury on Other Five
Update (5:21 p.m. EDT): "While I do not belive I did anything illegal… I did an awful, awful lot that is wrong," Edwards said outside the courtroom, turning on the campaign charm after staying mum during the trial. "If I want to find the person who’s responsible for my sins, I don’t have to go any further than the mirror. It’s me and it’s me alone." He thanked the jury -- "those jurors were an exemplar of the kind of thing juries are supposed to do" -- and he thanked his parents and children, including Quinn, who he had with Rielle Hunter, and "who I love more than any of you can imagine, who I am so close to and so, so grateful for." He didn't mention Hunter.
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Update (4:40 p.m. EDT): This is how it ends: The judge declared a mistrial.
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Update (4:20 p.m. EDT): ABC's Jake Tapper Tweets that the jury has just announced it found Edwards not guilty on count three (that's illegally accepting the campaign contribution from Bunny Mellon in 2008) and hung on all other counts. The jury and attorneys had filed back into court just about an hour after the Jury's false start, in which it said it had reached a verdict but when the judge realized that was just on one count, ordered jurors back to deliberate more.
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Update (3 p.m. EDT): The Associated Press reports the jury only reached a verdict in one of the six counts against Edwards. MSNBC is reporting that it's the third count, that he illegally accepted a contribution from Bunny Mellon in 2008, but we don't know what the verdict is, nor has the jury reached any other decision. "Prosecutors argued that the jury should keep deliberating and the defense asked for the verdict to be read. They also want a mistrial on the other counts," the AP reported. The judge ordered the jury to keep deliberating.
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Original: After nine days of deliberations, the jury in John Edwards campaign finance fraud trial says it's reached a verdict, and now we're all in a holding pattern waiting to hear what the jury finally says at 3 p.m.
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The former presidential and vice-presidential candidate had been accused of diverting nearly $1 million in campaign donations from campaign donors, including society widow Bunny Mellon, to cover up an affair with Rielle Hunter, with whom he had a child while he was running for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Edwards' defense said the money didn't count as a campaign donation, but rather was a personal gift from Edwards' supporters.
The trial itself revealed the soap opera behind the scenes of the Edwards campaign, with Hunter secreted away on the trail and Edwards' close adviser Andrew Young working to keep her hidden. We also learned about Edwards' political aspirations, including that he once dreamed of being a Supreme Court justice. Neither John Edwards, his daughter, nor Rielle Hunter ever took the stand in the trial.
Updates as soon as they are made available.
