Ex-Edwards Mistress Tries to Block 'Private and Personal' Video

As ex-aide touts sex tape, Rielle Hunter claims tapes taken from her.

ByABC News
January 28, 2010, 12:27 PM

Jan. 28, 2010— -- Presidential candidate John Edwards' former mistress has gone to court to suppress "a personal video recording that depicted matters of a very private and personal nature."

Rielle Hunter's bid for a temporary restraining order to prohibit Andrew and Cheri Young from possessing and distributing certain photos and videos comes as Young, also a former Edwards aide, details what he believes is a sex tape involving Edwards and Hunter.

"There was one tape that was marked 'special,'" Andrew Young told ABC News' Bob Woodruff in an exclusive interview, describing his discovery of a tape in Hunter's trash. "It's a sex tape of Rielle and John Edwards made just a couple of months before the Iowa caucuses."

Though Young never saw the woman's face in the tape, he said she was "visibly pregnant" and was "wearing a bracelet" and a "thumb ring" typically worn by Rielle Hunter.

"It's her jewelry," Andrew Young's wife, Cheri, told ABC News. "It could be on another woman with the same jewelry."

Watch "20/20" and "Nightline" Friday, Jan. 29 to see Andrew Young's exclusive interview. Then tune in to "Good Morning America" Monday, Feb. 1, when Young will appear for his first live interview. Visit the "20/20" Web site at ABCNews.com all week for more on Young's account of the sex scandal.

In an affidavit filed with the bid for the temporary restraining order, Hunter said she never authorized the display of her "private and personal" videotape that she said she made around September 2006 -- and, in fact, she hid it away because of its sensitivity.

"In or about December 2006, the decision was made that the video should be destroyed," she wrote in the affidavit. "Therefore, I opened up the plastic casing of the miniDV cassette and pulled out the tape contained therein. However, because I was concerned that persons seeking information about my activities were or could be searching my trash, I decided to instead store the remains of the miniDV tape in a hatbox in which I stored other important personal items in order to maintain possession and control over the video. I did not take any action that would obliterate the contents of the tape itself."

Though Hunter refers to making and hiding the videotape in 2006, the woman in the sex video appears to be pregnant. Hunter was pregnant in 2007 and had Edwards' child, Frances Quinn, on Feb. 27, 2008.

Andrew Young, who covered up the Democratic presidential candidate's affair with Hunter, is recounting the sex scandal and the elaborate cover-up in a new tell-all book titled, "The Politician," which will be released Jan. 30.

Young told ABC News' "20/20" that he came across the sex videotape as he cleaned up a home he rented in North Carolina where Hunter briefly stayed in October 2007.

Hunter said she left three videotapes and other items in storage at a Chatham County, N.C., house Young had rented for her, assuming they were safe.

In August 2008, she said, while living with the Youngs in Santa Barbara, Calif., she asked them to enter her former North Carolina residence to retrieve her passport, which was stored in the same box as her videotapes.

"I learned the video recordings were missing in September or October 2008, in conjunction with a move of my personal belongings," Hunter wrote. "I believe the Youngs or one of them in fact have possession of the video and/or one or more copies of the video."