CENTREAL ISLIP, N.Y. - Sensational testimony surrounding the Christie Brinkley divorce opened last week and continues this week with mentions of $300,000 in hush money paid to a teenage mistress, extramarital trysts and thousands of dollars spent on online porn.
The husband, architect Peter Cook, 49, testified that he and Brinkley, 54, used pornography "to get the mood going."
"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 maintained the perfect family portrait throughout the Hamptons social circuit, but the reality was "they relied on porn as a precursor to intimacy during the last half of their marriage," Cook said, acknowledging he spent approximately $3,000 a month on pornographic websites in 2005. Cook said he has not accessed the sites since his breakup and denied ever looking at the material in the presence of his children.
"Peter has apologized. He's cried his eyes out. He's lost his marriage," Cook's lawyer, Norman Sheresky said
Cook and Brinkley are mainly disputing custody of the children. Her ownership of her $30 million home is not being contested because the couple had a prenuptial agreement. They are also arguing over property that includes three boats.
Brinkley fought a bid by the children's legal guardian to close the trial to the public, and Cook's lawyer said the model was partly to blame for an unseemly spectacle.
Brinkley and Cook wed in 1996.
