The daughter of disgraced former North Carolina Democratic Sen. John Edwards claimed she wasn’t a U.S. citizen to get out of jury duty in early 2011, court records The Daily Caller obtained show.
According to those records, Cate Edwards was excused from jury duty on Jan. 7, 2011 in Orange County, North Carolina because she was considered a non-citizen of that county. Additionally, a comment included by a court clerk’s office staffer states that the reason for Cate Edwards’ excusal was that she was not a citizen of the United States of America.
James Stanford, the clerk of the Superior Court for Orange County, told The Daily Caller that such a claim of non-citizenship originates with the “person who’s actually been summoned for jury duty.” That means, in this case, Cate Edwards made the claim herself.
“They would indicate to the clerk’s office that they are not citizens of the county of Orange, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not a citizen of the state of North Carolina — just that they’re not a citizen of Orange County,” Stanford said in a phone interview.
But, Stanford said, when one of his clerk’s office staffers adds information into the “amplifying remarks” column – like the comment added about how Cate Edwards was “Not [a] Us Citizen” – he said he would “have to assume that’s a representation that was made to the clerk’s office [by the person who was summoned for jury duty] that they were not a United States citizen.”
Cate’s father, former Sen. John Edwards, is in the midst of a highly publicized trial over whether he embezzled campaign funds from his 2008 presidential bid to pay living expenses for his mistress, Rielle Hunter.
A Harvard-educated attorney, Cate has been her father’s most visible public supporter and often accompanies him to his court appearances. At one point in the trial, Cate left the courtroom in tears after a former Edwards aide testified that Edwards’ late wife Elizabeth, then fighting breast cancer, confronted the candidate over his affair, tore her shirt off in a Raleigh airport hangar, and said, “You don’t see me anymore.”
To verify that the jury duty excusal records do in fact refer to the same Cate Edwards who is the daughter of the former Senator, TheDC compared the address listed for her on court records to her voter registration information and her father’s voter registration information.
The address listed for former Sen. John Edwards and his daughter Cate Edwards on official Orange County North Carolina voter rolls is the same address listed for the Cate Edwards who was excused from jury duty in early 2011 for claiming she wasn’t a U.S. citizen.
Cate Edwards didn’t immediately respond to TheDC’s request for comment.