A Smithville, Texas teenager, who grew up to graduate from the University of Texas at Austin law school and became a prominent lawyer, was a major role player in the John Edwards sex and love child scandal.
The late Fred Baron, famous for winning billions of dollars in asbestos lawsuits for clients, was finance chairman of John Edwards's presidential 2004 and 2008 campaigns.
Baron helped Andrew Young, the Edwards confidant and campaign worker, who in making the media rounds promoting his book “The Politician,” Young’s family and Edwards mistress, relocate to Santa Barbara, California to get away as the scandal unraveled in North Carolina.
“I paid for them to relocate to another home in another state,” Baron told reporters later. “I never discussed it with John (Edwards).”
Edwards, according to Young, asked him to declare paternity of the baby Edwards fathered with mistress and videographer Rielle Hunter.
Baron, a productive fundraiser for the Democratic Party, used his extensive political network of trial lawyers and donors to raise millions for the party. Known for throwing extravagant Dallas fundraising parties in his $17 million 15,000-square foot-home in Dallas, Baron hosted prominent Democrats such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Don Henley and Alec Baldwin.
Although Baron claimed Edwards did not know he was paying out of his own pocket, according to Young, he was told by Edwards that Baron would pay him if he would claim to be the baby’s father and move to California.
"Exhausted and under intense pressure to make a decision, we finally agreed that even if we followed through on the senator's plan, no one who knew us would actually believe the story he wanted everyone to tell, so we took the plunge," Young wrote about his and his wife, Cheri’s decision
When Baron was questioned by the media about spending $15,000 a month on rent for pregnant Hunter and the Young’s he admitted he was paid, but it was “not near that.”
In recent interviews Young said Baron paid for them to leave North Carolina and move to Florida, Colorado and eventually to a leased $20,000 a month house in Santa Barbara, California.
Baron’s wife, Lisa Blue-Baron was hoping for an ambassadorship to Europe in the event of an Edwards presidential victory. Mrs. Baron indicated she studied French, Italian and Spanish preparing for the possibility.
When Edwards first admitted to having the affair, Baron was quoted as having a “whole bag of emotions” and said Edwards “was in denial himself. He did a very, very stupid, bad thing.”
Baron, who died from cancer in October, 2009 at the age of 61, was a controversial plaintiff’s lawyer who made millions representing clients who had been exposed to toxic materials, including asbestos.
During a 1997 trial, a memo was accidently given to the opposing side that showed Baron’s firm was instructing people how to testify, including that they had not seen any warning labels or directions on material packages.
Baron contributed to Edwards’ 1998 U.S. Senate campaign in North Carolina and the next year became the president of the American Trial Lawyers Association. He joined Edwards 2003 president campaign staff and the conservative National Review called Baron "John Edwards' Evil Twin."
Baron made history with his trial lawyer network by raising a record $7.4 million in 90 days for Edwards. When John Kerry won the Democratic nomination, Baron lobbied and influenced Kerry to name Edwards as his vice presidential running mate.
After the Kerry-Edwards defeat, Baron returned to Texas and poured money and resources in the Dallas area to defeat many local Republican nominees and incumbents.
Baron was described in his November 1, 2008 obituary as having a “uniquely charismatic and compelling personality. He is frank, passionate and enthusiastic about everything in life, and earnestly worked for his clients.”
Young’s book “contains many falsehood and exaggerations,” claimed Edwards’s estranged wife Elizabeth Edwards, through a spokesperson last week. “She believed Andrew Young to be the father of this child until her husband confessed his paternity to her this past summer.”
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