Is John Edwards' former aide covering for him?

In 1999, Young married Cheri Lynn Pfister, a 25-year-old nurse at the time.

"They appeared to be a nice happy couple," said Carolyn Grissom, who purchased their home in Raleigh in early 2007. "They seemed to be crazy about each other. They certainly are crazy about their kids and dog."

Cheri Young had a short moment in the spotlight in 2006, when she and her sister were in the audience during a taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the star gave them $1,000 and instructions to make someone's life better. Young used to money to seek donations from others, eventually raising more than $35,000 for needy families in North Carolina.

"We all have our ups and we all have our downs, and when you're up, you reach out, and when you're down, you allow others to help," she said on Winfrey's Web site.

That same year, Young was back in trouble with the law. He was cited in August 2006 for having open beer containers at a park near his home and, the next month, charged with driving while impaired. A substance abuse counselor later wrote that he had "found some evidence of alcohol abuse," according to court records. Young was supposed to begin group counseling three days later. It was not clear from the records whether he completed the counseling.

Earlier this year, he was sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation and 24 hours of community service for the DWI. Court papers said he was living in California for work-related purposes. His attorney in that case did not return several calls.

Fred Baron, Edwards' national finance chairman and a wealthy Dallas-based trial attorney, has acknowledged he quietly sent money to Hunter and to Young's family to resettle in California.

Baron said he did so on his own, to "help two friends and former colleagues rebuild their lives when harassment by supermarket tabloids made it impossible for them to move forward on their own."

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