ASPEN—A Starwood estate associated with a national political sex scandal is on the market for $19.95 million.
Real estate blog Curbed.com reported earlier this week that former presidential candidate John Edwards’ pregnant mistress Rielle Hunter hid out during the 2008 presidential race in a 14,000-square-foot stone Starwood mansion designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern, prior to the scandal over their liaison erupting and Edwards’ ensuing federal trial over campaign finance law violations related to the affair.
Public documents and other news sources seem to corroborate the story, although Aspen Snowmass Sotheby’s International Realty’s Craig Morris, the listing agent for the property, said in an e-mail that he “never heard of that rumor.”
The Curbed report, written by Rob Bear, includes photos of the property at 360 S. Starwood Drive and a link to the listing on the Sotheby’s International Realty website. Both match a listing for the same address (whose legal address is actually 382 S. Starwood) on the Aspen/Glenwood MLS (Multiple Listing Service).
The five-bedroom property on three acres was listed on September 6, according to the MLS, and is owned by the Lisa A. Blue Baron Revocable Trust, according to the Pitkin County assessor’s website.
Lisa Blue is the widow of the late trial lawyer Fred Baron, who was Edwards’ campaign finance chairman. The same trust owns a property in Dallas whose address is the same as the one in the Pitkin County assessor records. And that same Texas address is associated with the couple’s eponymous Baron and Blue Foundation.
According to testimony from Edwards’ criminal trial and several news sources, Baron helped fund a plan in late 2007 and early 2008 to keep a pregnant Hunter away from Edwards and potential media attention, after the National Enquirer first reported that Edwards was having an affair.
Baron reportedly provided private planes and other funding for Hunter and another campaign staffer and friend, Andrew Young, to quietly move around the country and avoid the media during the lead-up to the all-important Iowa primary. Young at that time publicly admitted that he was the father of Hunter’s child, as part of the alleged cover-up.
According to court testimony, Hunter was first flown to Florida, then Aspen, where Baron owned a vacation home—the Starwood estate. It’s unclear from the court records how long she stayed in Aspen on two separate occasions, but some news sources reported she was there over the holidays in 2007 before settling in California for a longer period of time.
According to the New York Daily News, Baron spent some $183,000 on the hideaway scheme—which became the subject of an indictment of Edwards by a grand jury in 2011.
The trial, which included four counts of collecting illegal campaign contributions, was postponed until 2012. Edwards was found not guilty of one of the counts and a mistrial was declared on all other counts against him in late May. In June, the US Justice Department announced it was dropping all charges.
Edwards admitted to fathering Hunter’s child in a January 2010 press release. 
http://www.aspenbusinessjournal.com/article.php?id=1785
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