When John Edwards faced the prospect of an indictment that could put him behind bars, he told his mistress he would probably wind up in a low-security prison in Virginia more like a country club than a jail.
Rielle Hunter details their phone call just days before his indictment in her new memoir, purchased by The Associated Press ahead of its release.
"What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter and Me," also includes Rielle Hunter's mixed views on Edwards' parenting of their daughter, Quinn, and descriptions of Elizabeth Edwards' outbursts.
The book provides a window into Edwards' psyche as federal prosecutors began their case against him. Days before his indictment Hunter asked: "So if you went to jail, what kind of jail would it be? One of those country clubs?"
"He said, 'Yeah.'"
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"'Where?'" she asked.
"'Probably Virginia.'"
"So Quinn and I will move to Virginia. Virginia is a great state."
On the day of the indictment, the two shared a surreal phone call as a newspaper reporter banged on her door in Charlotte, while the man she refers to as "Johnny" throughout the book called to say that he was also being pursued.
"'I've got helicopters circling my house,' Johnny said."
The book is being released through a Dallas-based boutique publisher, BenBella Books, on June 26.
Federal prosecutors spent a year prosecuting Edwards, culminating in a six-week trial that ended last month. Jurors acquitted Edwards on one count of accepting illegal campaign contributions and deadlocked on five other felony counts. The judge declared a mistrial. Federal prosecutors then said in a court order earlier this month that they wouldn't retry Edwards, and the charges against him were dropped.
Neither Edwards nor Hunter testified.
Prosecutors had accused Edwards, 59, of masterminding a scheme to use about $1 million in secret payments from two wealthy political donors to hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008.
The trial publicized intimate details about Edwards' affair with Hunter as his wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer. Much of the book describes their unfolding relationship and the lengths to which Hunter went to sneak in and out of Edwards' hotel rooms, even after her contract as a videographer ended.
She also describes paparazzi chases after news of their affair broke.
