Andrew Young Showed John Edwards Sex Tape to ABC: Claims Elizabeth Edwards Threatened Alienation of Affection Suit

ABC Sees Sex Tape One Day After NC Judge Orders Young to Turn Over Tape and All Copies

Young Claims Elizabeth Edwards Threatened Alienation of Affection Suit

North Carolina Law Allows Elizabeth to Sue, Third Party Can be Someone Other than Adulterous Lover

“I answered as honestly as I could.”
Andrew Young during Rielle Hunter sex tape contempt of court proceeding

Seems timing, at least in regards to temporary restraining orders and sex tapes, is everything as, according to news reports, ABC News has seen the Rielle Hunter-John Edwards sex tape, courtesy of Andrew Young.

According to the Washington Post, Andrew Young admitted today in a North Carolina court during testimony in the Rielle Hunter contempt of court sex tape hearing that he’d previewed the tape to ABC news “prior to an interview”. Young and his wife Cheri appeared on ABC’s 20/20 in an exclusive interview with Bob Woodruff on January 29, one day after a North Carolina judge ordered Young to turn over the tape and all copies.

During the ABC 20/20 interview neither Young or ABC News mentioned Young had shown the sex tape to ABC News. Young claimed in interviews that he didn’t want to profit from the tape. Even so, Young used the tape to help sell his tell-all tome to the publisher and then used the tape to land exclusive interviews with ABC’s 20/20 and ABC’s Good Morning America.

During a February 2nd interview with Sean Hannity, Young stated he wouldn’t sell the tape because he “didn’t think he could live with himself”. Young never mentioned he’d given ABC News a private screening.

During today’s court proceedings Young’s attorney turned over a copy which was at the Young’s home. Yesterday a court appointed security guard escorted Young to an Atlanta bank to retrieve the original sex tape from a safe deposit box. The WAPO article didn’t mention the fate of the purported John Edwards-Rielle Hunter sex tape copy turned over to the FBI by Young’s attorney. According to News Observer, the FBI copy was turned over to the judge:

Richard Segal, a Washington lawyer who represents Andrew Young and his wife, Cheri, testified that a copy of the sex tape was provided to the FBI at the request of U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of North Carolina as evidence in “ongoing grand jury investigation of John Edwards.”

Post now reflects that the tape was retrieved by a court-appointed security officer.

News Observer also reported other personal Rielle Hunter items Young’s attorney turned over to the judge:

Young’s lawyer brought to court a blue gym bag with other items that Hunter has sued to get.

Included in the bag were: a copy of sex tape from Young home; four campaign “webisodes”; tapes of interviews with Edwards’ children shot by Hunter, as well as other assorted videos. The bag also contained two CDs of photos taken by Hunter and a flash drive with copies of photos.

The webisodes were interesting in that Young alleged Hunter had visited the Edwards’ home while Elizabeth was away in late 2006 and had filmed the Edwards’ children and John Edwards’ parents. Hunter purportedly turned the film into one of the “webisodes”, a series of mini-documentaries for the internet Hunter filmed and produced in 2006 for Edwards’ One America Committee. The webisode with Edwards’ family was never posted on the web and purportedly ended up in Hunter’s hatbox. A webisode which proved Rielle Hunter had contact with Edwards’ children while Edwards and Hunter were engaged in an affair that had begun in February of the same year.

According to WaPo, Young “struggled” to explain why he’d told the judge just last week that the only copies of the sex tape were secured in the safe deposit box. “I answered as honestly as I could,” Young testified after admitting that he had a copy of the tape “elsewhere” and that he had “recently” shown the tape to ABC News.

Young also claimed Elizabeth Edwards had threatened to file an alienation of affection suit against Young.

Young said after the hearing that Elizabeth Edwards has threatened an “alienation of affection” lawsuit against him.

North Carolina is among about a half-dozen states that allows a person to sue a third party for contributing to the breakup of a marriage. Jilted spouses typically use the remedy to seek money from their partner’s lover.

“We have some very powerful people coming after us,” Young said. “Are we scared? Absolutely.”

Usually in alienation of the affection cases the “third party” is the lover. In this case the third party would be an ex-aide of a Senator who helped facilitate an affair, Andrew Young, who wasn’t a “lover” but did “love” John Edwards.

Excerpt from a February 2nd, Andrew Young interview with Sean Hannity:

Sean Hannity: Wasn’t that a disappointment for you at that moment that here’s a guy that you had put your faith and you believed in, he’s having this affair, but it got worse than that, you became the facilitator of the affair?

Andrew Young: I did.

Hannity: You would help arrange these three-way calls..

Young: I did.

Hannity: And you would drop the “Bat Phone” as you called it on the airplane so he could sneak behind his wife?

Young: I did.

Hannity: You facilitated these rendezvous?

Young: I did.

Hannity: Why would you do that?

Young: “Well, first and foremost there’s no logical or rational reason for why I did it. John Edwards and I had gotten to be very close friends. We jogged together, we went to basketball games together, our families vacationed together, our kids played together, but on top of that it was also a career. I’d put, at this point, six or seven years into this and at this point he was a viable, potential president and I was really torn between the incredible things he could do and some of the powerful things we did do with healthcare, with education, with the College For Everyone program. I was torn between the incredible things he could accomplish and the appalling behavior that I saw.

Hannity: But was it that you were blinded by your own ambition or desire for power? At any point in this process, knowing he’s recklessly having an affair, knowing that you’re facilitating the cheating against his wife…

Young: Right.

Hannity: Did you ever stand back, did you ever have a moment where your conscience bothered you and said I cannot continue what I’m doing here?

Young: There were tons of moments like that, you’re saying was it this, or this, or this? There was all the above. There was the love for him, there was the love for his family, and once Elizabeth got sick, there was the love for her as well.

On July 22, 2008, the day the Enquirer reported they’d caught John Edwards in Rielle Hunter’s Beverly Hilton Hotel room, Ted Frank at Overlawyered.com, had this to say about Elizabeth Edwards and a potential alienation of affection lawsuit against Rielle Hunter:

I have no idea if the allegations that former presidential candidate John Edwards has a love-child with Rielle Hunter are true–though his actions seem pretty damning.

But let me be the first to point out that, if the allegations are true, Elizabeth Edwards can take advantage of North Carolina’s unusual tort law to sue Hunter for alienation of affection. When we last looked at the state of affairs in North Carolina in 2006, there were 200 such suits a year, with some verdicts in the six and seven digits. Of course, Mrs. Edwards would need a trial lawyer willing to take on her husband first.

In 2005, Walter Olsen wrote:

The North Carolina Bar Association is pressing to abolish the state’s unusual cause of action for alienation of affection, a carryover from common law days in a few states which allows a wronged spouse to sue the other spouse’s paramour for having broken up the marriage. The law is still sometimes used, and in fact damage awards have been escalating briskly in the Tarheel State, reaching $500,000 (later reduced) in a 1990 Forsyth County case and $1.2 million in a case eight years ago in the same county.

North Carolina law does allow for individuals other than the paramour or lover to be sued for alienation of affection.

From Family Law Info:

In the State of North Carolina, a married person may be able to file suit against a third party who has interfered with their marital relationship. North Carolina is in the minority of states allowing these types of actions. These lawsuits are “alienation of affection” and/or “criminal conversation.” The “innocent” spouse typically brings these types of lawsuits against the “guilty” spouse’s paramour/lover. A claim for alienation of affection, however, can also be brought against a third party such as an in-law or other near relative who has advised a defecting spouse to leave the marital relationship. The statute of limitation for criminal conversation and alienation of affection, pursuant to N.C.G.S. Section 1-52(5) is three (3) years. The three-year statute of limitation will begin to run on the date that alienation occurred, which is determined by a court on a case-by-case basis.

In this case, the lover would be replaced by an ex-Senator’s aide who freely admitted he’d facilitated the affair, the basis of a potential Elizabeth Edwards alienation of affection suit against Young. Not only would Elizabeth have to prove Young facilitated or interfered with the Edwards’ marriage, Elizabeth would have to show she and Edwards were happily married with “genuine” love and affection between them; that the love and affection between the Edwards was alienated and destroyed; and that the loss of love and affection was caused by the “wrongful and malicious” acts of Young.

by LBG

UPDATE by Mondo: LBG will be thrilled to find out that one of her heroes, Walter Olson, mentioned this piece: Alienation of John Edwards’ affections?.

Heh: Olson’s mention includes a killer comment by SmartDude. I won’t give it away. Click the Overlawyered link above to read it.

Another UPDATE: Oh my. A Kausfiles shout-out–there’s sure to be peals of joy in LBG-ville tonight…No matter how successful MK is in re-establishing his brand!

Quite the day, Ginn, right?

UPDATE: Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism site has my piece on the duplicity of the Mainstream Media during the Edwards Scandal: The MSM Tries to Wrap Its Mind Around the John Edwards Scandal, Fails to Look In the Mirror.

And in case you missed our earlier DBKP piece: John Edwards Scandal: Edwards Proposes to Rielle Hunter -UPDATED.

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Tags: andrew young, John Edwards Scandal, Sex tape