Rielle Hunter, who is currently at the center of the biggest sex scandal in years, was a child of privilege, the daughter of a wealthy Florida lawyer.

Steven Smith is a family friend who dated one of Rielle's sisters.  He says Rielle was desperate for fame and wealth of her own:  "She was a spoiled girl.  That's where she wanted to be.  She wanted to be rich and famous," Smith says.

But he says a family scandal has cast a shadow over Rielle's life since she was a teenager.  "The most common thing that was said was, 'If my father was alive he would probably be in jail right now,' " says Smith.

Rielle's dad was involved in a gruesome insurance scam that shocked the nation.

Tommy Burns used to earn his living as a horse hit man, an assassin hired by owner who had horses killed for insurance money.

"You couldn't even look at the animal, you just did what you did and got out of there," says Burns.

His arrest in 1991 blew the lid off a widespread insurance scam that stunned the world of show jumping.

Burns claimed that Rielle Hunter's father James Druck was the first of many clients.

Burns told INSIDE EDITION in 1995 that Druck showed him how to electrocute horses so that their deaths appeared natural.

"I worked for an insurance lawyer at the time, and he was the first one to approach me to kill a horse.  That was pretty much when it started," Burns told INSIDE EDITION.

He said his first victim was a horse that Rielle Hunter rode when she was a teenager, named Henry the Hawk.

Rielle Hunter's father was never charged, and has since died.  But the scandal left a scar on Rielle and her sister.

"Two people who loved horses, loved to ride, never rode again!" says Smith.