Brinkley’s Divorce
Friday, July 4th, 2008Sensational testimony about Christie Brinkley’s estranged husband opened their divorce trial, giving the public a salacious peek into the proceedings. Her husband, architect Peter Cook, testified that he gave a $300,000 payoff to a teenage mistress, that he spent thousands of dollars for online porn each month and that he carried on extramarital trysts in this office and his wife’s Hamptons homes. Diana Bianchi, the young woman whose affair with Cook set off a tabloid frenzy and ended the couple’s marriage, testified that he hid cash for her under a rock and gave her $15,000 to help her buy a car in 2005.”That is the man who’s come before this court and asked for custody of his 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter,” said Brinkley’s lawyer, Robert Stephan Cohen. Brinkley and Cook married in 1996. She filed for divorce a decade later, after his affair with Bianchi exploded into public view.”There is no way to make that right,” said Cook’s lawyer, Norman Sheresky. “Peter has apologized. He’s cried his eyes out. He’s lost his marriage.” Cook and Brinkley are mainly disputing custody of the children. Cook met Bianchi, then 17, while she was working at a Hamptons toy store in 2004. He testified that he soon hired her to work at his architecture firm, paying her $20,000 to type magazine articles onto the company’s Web site. Before long, he seduced her while they were working together in the office, she testified. “He had shown interest in me, and I reciprocated. He asked me how I would feel if he told me he was attracted to me,” she said. “I wasn’t taken aback, but I wasn’t really against it.” Bianchi said the two had sex about 10 times before their relationship ended in late 2005. Cook counted about 12 rendezvous, some at the office, some at Brinkley’s homes in the Hamptons. Tearing up as he testified, Cook said he showered Bianchi with spending money and other gifts. The $300,000 payout came in May 2007. Cook said he was trying to protect himself and his family from scandal and was concerned that Bianchi might file a sexual harassment lawsuit. No lawsuit was ever filed.
