Andrew Aldridge Young is the former Edwards campaign worker and assistant who has claimed to be the father of John Edward's mistress Rielle Hunter's baby. Young has a wife and three children. Dallas attorney and John Edwards supporter Fred Baron recently confirmed that he financed Young, his family, and Hunter's move to Santa Barbara, claiming to have financed the move and living expenses without the knowledge of Edwards. Young's name does not appear on the Hunter baby's birth certificate, which has kept open questions about whether Young is actually the father.
Now public records searches reveal a history of criminal charges and convictions that paint a potentially different picture of Young than that of a typical campaign worker. The records, published on the website WebOfDeception.com, appear to list over twenty different criminal offenses and a tax lien. The earliest offense listed is a traffic offense from 1983 but also include more recent charges including a August 2006 court disposition of July 2006 Possessing Beer On City Property offense and guilty pleas in 2007 for several DWI Level V offenses that occurred on September 12th, 2006. A Level V offense is the least serious DWI level under North Carolina state law.
In the middle of December 2007, Andrew Young made the following statement through his attorney.
"Andrew Young is the father of Ms. Hunter's unborn child," declared his Washington, D.C.-based attorney. "Sen. Edwards knew nothing about the relationship between these former co-workers, which began when they worked together in 2006."
"As a private citizen who no longer works for the campaign, Mr. Young asks that the media respect his privacy while he works to make amends with his family."
I spoke to Joseph Culligan,the author of several books on investigation techniques including When In Doubt, Check Him Out : A Woman's Survival Guide for the 90's and webmaster of WebOfDeception. Culligan said that all the information was gained though public records searches.
I was able to confirm much of the information on WebOfDeception through a public records search using the service PeopleFinders.com.
(Note: Culligan's site did not work properly in Firefox on my Windows XP machine but showed up fine in Internet Explorer.)