Ex-aide says Edwards is really child's father

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A man who once claimed to have fathered the child of John Edwards' mistress says in a book proposal that the former presidential candidate is the real father and that Edwards had worked with his campaign finance chairman to hide that secret, according to a newspaper report published online yesterday.

The New York Times said the book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young states he helped facilitate the affair between Edwards and Rielle Hunter. According to the newspaper, Young wrote that Edwards told Hunter they would wed after Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, who has cancer, died.

Edwards told Hunter that the ceremony would be held on a rooftop in New York and the Dave Matthews Band would make an appearance, the newspaper said, citing the book proposal.

St. Martin's Press has said Young signed a book deal with the publisher in June and it involved a strict confidentiality agreement.

Edwards has said the affair with Hunter ended in 2006. That year, Edwards' political action committee paid Hunter's video production firm $100,000 for work. Then the committee paid $14,086 on April 1, 2007. The Edwards camp has said the latter payment from the PAC was exchanged for 100 hours of unused videotape Hunter shot.

The same day, the Edwards presidential campaign had injected $14,034.61 into the PAC for a "furniture purchase," according to election records.

Edwards, a U.S. senator representing North Carolina from 1998 until his vice presidential bid in 2004, acknowledged in May that federal investigators were looking into how he used campaign funds.

Edwards denied during an interview with ABC News last summer that he had fathered a child with Hunter, and he welcomed a paternity test.

Young said in 2007 that he was the child's father. Hunter said around the same time that Young was the father and the birth certificate does not list a father's name.

Joyce Fitzpatrick, a spokeswoman for Edwards and his attorney, Wade Smith, said yesterday that Edwards would not comment.

Fred Baron, who was Edwards' national finance chairman, said that last year he sent money to Hunter and to Young's family to resettle in California.

The New York Times said the book proposal states Edwards knew from the start that he was the father of the child and expended considerable effort trying to conceal that. The proposal says Edwards pleaded with Young to claim paternity and asked Baron to check whether a doctor would fake the results of a paternity test.