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John Edwards, the former US presidential candidate, is expected to be prosecuted on suspicion of using campaign funds to pay his mistress hush money to keep quiet of their affair and love-child, during his bid for the White House.

Mr Edwards, was conducting a relationship with Rielle Hunter, a woman he met in a New York bar who became his campaign videographer, while running for President in 2008. Miss Hunter, 10 years his junior, had a daughter, Frances, in February 2008, while his wife Elizabeth was suffering from breast cancer.

Mr Edwards admitted the affair in August 2008 but denied he was the father of Frances. In January 2010, he acknowledged that he was the father, having previously maintained that the father was Andrew Young, his long-time aide.

Miss Hunter was hired by Mr Edwards in 2006. His wife, who became a major figure in his subsequent campaign, vowed to stand by him, but upon learning he was the father of Miss Hunter's child, separated from him in January last year. She died of cancer in December.

The former North Carolina senator, who lived a lavish lifestyle but presented himself as a champion of the poor, has been the subject of a two-year investigation into whether he used more than $1 million in political donations to hide the affair.

United States Justice Department sources told US media that Mr Edwards is to face prosecution for campaign finance violations. He could avoid an indictment by striking a plea bargain.

Any guilty plea, however, would mean he could no longer practice as a lawyer, ending his legal as well as his political career.

Investigators believe that "hush money" for Miss Hunter and Mr Young came from two top donors, Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, the 100-year-old heiress to the Mellon fortune, and Fred Baron, Mr Edwards's campaign finance chairman, who died in 2008.

Mr Young wrote a scathing tell-all book called "The Politician" about Mr Edwards, alleging that the former senator kept him in hiding with Miss Hunter from 2007 so that his presidential campaign could continue untarnished.

The sordid case reached a low when it was revealed that there was a video of Mr Edwards and a heavily pregnant Miss Hunter having sexual intercourse. Mr Young later handed the tape over to investigators.

Mr Young claimed that Mr Edwards sought funds from Mrs Mellon and that this was paid in cheques, some of them hidden in boxes of chocolates, for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The funds were later referred to as "the Bunny money". Mrs Mellon has said the money was intended as a personal gift, not a campaign donation.

Before he died, Mr Baron said that he helped Mr Young and Miss Hunter move to California and that Mr Edwrads was not aware of this.

Rumours about the affair first surfaced during the 2008 presidential campaign and some details were published by the "National Enquirer" but they were vehemently denied by Mr Edwards, who finished third in the presidential race and endorsed Barack Obama.

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