Multiple sources confirm the bombshell development, and reveal lawyers for the disgraced presidential candidate are privately hammering out child support payments with his former lover Rielle Hunter.

Edwards – who hotly denied he was the child’s father when he publicly confessed his affair with Rielle on ABC’s Nightline a year ago – has broken the news to his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, sources say.

But The ENQUIRER has also learned that Rielle testified against Edwards before a federal grand jury that’s probing whether he broke campaign finance laws by secretly funneling money to her – and her testimony could send the former North Carolina senator to jail!