Brinkley takes the stand in her divorce trial | News | CW11 New York

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Brinkley takes the stand in her divorce trial

Second day of her custody dispute with Peter Cook

BY LUIS PEREZ, luis.perez@newsday.com

July 3, 2008, 11:45 AM EDT

Christie Brinkley shot back at her estranged husband's lawyer on the stand Thursday, defending herself against insinuations that she was out for revenge and faked tears on the stand.

"I believe that we need to get to the truth here," Brinkley said on the stand. "Because I believe that the truth will lead to a better life for my children, for myself and for society in general."

She accused Norman Sheresky, defense lawyer for Peter Cook, of making her into an "angry, overdeserving celebrity," adding her anger was justified.

Sheresky then zeroed in during the cross-examination, only to have the Uptown girl rewrite his own script.

"You're an actress, aren't you?" Sheresky probed.

"I'm a member of the Screen Actor's Guild, but I'm no Meryl Streep. I don't want to flatter myself," Brinkley said to giggles in the courtroom. "But I've been in a very successful movie, ' National Lampoon's Vacation.' It's just gone on CD. After 30 years, it's still got legs."

Earlier in the day, Brinkley recalled how she reacted to news of her husband's infidelity.

"I just said to Peter, 'How could you?" The former supermodel testified in her divorce trial Thursday, waving fists in the air and turning her head for the first time from her lawyer to the defense table where Cook sat.

Cook leaned forward in his chair, but showed little emotion a day after he cried on the stand while admitting his adultery and pornography habit.

"You're not going to believe that man over me, are you?" Brinkley said Cook told her about Brian Platt, the father of 18-year-old Diana Bianchi who was the whistleblower of Cook's affair.

"I'm leaving. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I need to know," Brinkley said she told Cook at her Bridgehamptom mansion afterward.

"I was just in shock. I just started driving away from my perfect life. I thought I had the picket fence. We were happy," Brinkley testified of her mindset afterwards.

Shortly after Brinkley stormed off during the June 26, 2006 argument that set the divorce off, Brinkley was found muddied beneath a car door and with bloody knees, unable to stand because of the shock, her good friend Jill Rappaport testified earlier Thursday.

The Uptown Girl was so devastated to learn of her husband's adultery that she barely ate or spoke for several days, Rappaport testified.

"I thought she had died," Rappaport said.

During a recess, Cook said of Brinkley's testimony, "Shrek was more believable."

In response, Brinkley attorney Robert S. Cohen said, "For him to have made the statement, if he made that statement, is amongst the most outrageous things I've ever heard. He should be ashamed of himself."

A day after Brinkley sat through nearly six hours of testimony about her estranged husband's Cook's sex-obsessed ways, the former supermodel took the stand to tell firsthand how her 10-year marriage crumbled.

The virtual campground of cameras outside the Central Islip Supreme Court building did not go away on day two of the celebrity divorce trial of the season, and there is no reason to believe they will.

On Wednesday, the tears had not begun rolling down Cook's face when he testified in excruciating detail about his sexual relationship with a Southampton teenager and his expensive Internet pornography habit while married to the former supermodel.

"These are not fond memories I keep close to my heart," Cook said during the heated testimony in the trial, adding of his wife: "She was angry, upset, as she should have been."

Then came the sobs. One of Cook's attorneys approached him on the stand, asking if he had viewed Internet porn recently.

"I have not done that since June 25, 2006," said Cook, 49, citing the day that Brinkley, 54, filed to divorce him.

Cook's public flogging in a courtroom packed with reporters furiously typing on BlackBerrys and laptops fulfilled a threat by Brinkley's attorneys two weeks ago. The trial began with a whirlwind of testimony aimed at exposing Cook's cheating.

It was both expected, and for Brinkley's attorneys, legally necessary, as they build their case that Cook's sexual habits put his marriage and children at risk. Cook sparred with Brinkley's attorney about whether his son, Jack, 12, had inadvertently seen some pornography.

Acting State Supreme Court Justice Mark D. Cohen set aside four weeks for the trial, and said Wednesday that more than 30 witnesses are on a witness list. Among those expected to testify next week is Carri Lyn Ciamarra, 31, a fitness model identified as one of Cook's conquests who has also been subpoenaed.

Cook said he wooed Bianchi, then 18, after first seeing her at a Southampton toy store in 2005, then repeatedly had sex with her in his office and at two homes he shared with Brinkley. He also showered Bianchi with gifts and a paid office job.

He also spent as much as $3,600 a year on Internet pornography during their marriage, sometimes viewing it in family homes.

Cook fathered a daughter, Sailor Lee, who turned 10 Wednesday, with the former model. He also adopted Brinkley's son, Jack, whom she had with Richard Taubman.

According to terms set out by acting State Supreme Court Justice Mark Cohen, the trial, which may last at least four weeks, will move through three phases: adultery, child custody, and assets, which include cash, three boats and several parcels of East End real estate.

Brinkley's attorney Robert Cohen said all three issues are "intertwined" as he painted the Uptown Girl as the victim in his opening statements. She was a single, working mother who was "devastated" to learn of Cook's betrayal from Bianchi's stepfather while attending the 2006 graduation at Southampton High School, where she gave the commencement speech, Cohen said.

Cook's attorney, Norman Sheresky, painted Cook as a talented architect who helped Brinkley build a real estate fortune, and a doting dad who admits to adultery -- but also to having an overdemanding wife.

Taking the stand herself, Bianchi at times contradicted Cook's testimony about gifts and cash he gave her. She said he gave her a $15,000 down payment toward a 2005 Nissan Maxima (Cook said he hadn't) and revealed that Cook once left her $500 cash behind a rock outside Brinkley's $30 million Tower Hill mansion (Cook said he left it outside his office).

Bianchi also ventured where Cook didn't, in offering the number of times they had sex.

"Ten at the most, I would say," she said.

Also testifying was Alexa Ray Joel, 22, Brinkley's daughter with singer Billy Joel, who said Cook was at first warm and loving, but sour toward the end of the marriage. Cohen has said that, during that period, Billy Joel was a better father to Brinkley's children than Cook.

One day when Alexa Joel was taking a shower, Cook barged in, demanding she fix a leak it had caused, Alexa Joel said. "He shoved my head into a bucket and said, 'You clean this up!'" she testified.