GREENSBORO, N.C. — John Edwards' campaign-finance fraud case ended in a mistrial Thursday when jurors acquitted him of one of six charges but were unable to decide whether he misused money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president.
Minutes after the mistrial was declared, Edwards delivered a confession and an apology on the courthouse steps with his family at his side.
"While I do not believe I ever did anything illegal ... I've done an awful, awful lot that was wrong," he said.
Flanked by his elderly parents and his older daughter, Cate, the former candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination said he alone was responsible for the illicit affair that destroyed his marriage, ended his political career and tarnished his reputation. Prosecutors had focused on his furtive romance with Rielle Hunter, eliciting withering testimony that he lied about it and tried to cover it up.
"There is no one else who is responsible for my sins," Edwards said Thursday. "I am responsible. ... It is me and me alone."
The eight men and four women deliberated for more than 50 hours over nine days before telling U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles on Thursday afternoon that they were deadlocked on five of the charges. Just 20 minutes after the judge asked them to try to reach unanimous verdicts, the jurors returned to report they remained hopelessly deadlocked.
The jurors did not talk to the media.
The Justice Department must now decide whether to retry Edwards on the five counts. A spokeswoman said the department had no immediate comment. But one law-enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said federal prosecutors are unlikely to retry the case.
Edwards, 58, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, was charged with "knowingly and willingly" accepting illegal campaign contributions from two wealthy donors to help hide the affair and save his campaign for the 2008 nomination from collapsing in scandal.
He had faced up to 30 years in jail and $1.5 million in fines if convicted on all counts.
Edwards' lawyers conceded he was a philandering husband who had lied to his cancer-stricken wife and to voters. But they said the payments were private gifts intended to hide the affair — and Frances Quinn Hunter, his daughter with Rielle Hunter — from Elizabeth Edwards, who was in failing health. She died of cancer in December 2010.
The four-week trial was dominated by salacious details of Edwards' affair, but the outcome hinged on the intricacies of densely written federal campaign-finance laws. In the end, jurors decided Edwards did not violate those laws regarding a $200,000 check in 2008 from billionaire heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. They did not indicate which way the panel was leaning on the five deadlocked charges.
Asked in the courtroom how he felt about the jury's decision, Edwards' father, Wallace Edwards, 80, pointed to the smile on his lips and said: "This says it all."
Edwards' mother, Bobbie, 78, who — along with her husband and Cate sat behind Edwards throughout the trial — said, "We prayed for this, and God answered our prayers."
The trial featured two main characters who were exposed in testimony as liars with tarnished reputations: Edwards and his former aide, Andrew Young.
The prosecution portrayed Edwards as a manipulative, scheming politician who orchestrated payments totaling $925,000 to cover up the affair. They built their case around Young, who testified under a grant of immunity.
Young said Edwards solicited the payments, kept abreast of the scheme and persuaded Young to falsely claim that he had fathered Hunter's child. But testimony revealed that Young and his wife kept much of the money for themselves and kept phony records to cover it up.
The money came from Mellon, 101, and from Fred Baron, a wealthy Texas lawyer who was Edwards' campaign-finance chairman. Baron died in 2008. Mellon was not called to testify.
Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.