During John Edwards' two campaigns for president, Andrew Aldridge Young was a trusted, loyal aide, often near the candidate's side when he was in North Carolina.
When Edwards and his family were out of town, Young looked after their houses. When they flew into town, Young picked them up at the airport. If Edwards' parents needed help at a campaign event, Young was there. When hordes of reporters and photographers trampled the grass of Edwards' Raleigh neighbors during his 2003 presidential announcement, Young arranged to have the damage repaired.
And when Rielle Hunter -- the campaign videographer with whom Edwards has acknowledged he had an affair -- became pregnant, Young said the baby was his.
That statement, posted in December by a Washington lawyer representing Young, transformed and complicated the life of a 42-year-old man who finished law school at Wake Forest but apparently has never practiced law. He has lived in the Governors Club near Chapel Hill with his wife and three children, and more recently in a Santa Barbara, Calif., home worth nearly $2 million. Both homes are in gated communities that offer some shielding from public view.
It is not clear whether he is working. But records show that work is wrapping up on Young's new home: a 5,300-square-foot structure on a wooded, 10-acre lot outside Chapel Hill.
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