Cook admits affair with teen

Christie Brinkley's estranged husband said yesterday he had sex with his teenage lover in his office, then paid her $300,000 while hoping to keep their affair quiet. He also showered her with spending money, including $500 hidden under a rock. Peter Cook, called to the stand by his wife's divorce lawyers, was questioned about his affair with Diana Bianchi, who is expected to testify that Cook seduced her shortly after hiring her for his Hamptons architectural firm. Earlier, Brinkley's lawyer said Cook spent about $3,000 a month on pornographic websites. "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," attorney Robert Stephan Cohen said. The couple's daughter, Sailor, had her birthday yesterday. "It was wrong and he said it was wrong," Cook's lawyer, Norman Sheresky, said of the porn. But the main focus of the trial is Cook's affair with the 18-year-old, which set off a frenzy in the tabloids. Cohen said Brinkley found out about it from the teenager's stepfather; the fashion model got the bad news moments before she was to speak at the Southampton High School graduation. Cook said he met Bianchi in early 2005 when she was working at a Hamptons toy store. Their affair began that March, around the time he hired Bianchi. She was paid $20,000 to type magazine articles onto the company's website. He also left her cash payments in various spots: $500 under the rock outside his office; more behind a painting. Bianchi got the $300,000 in May 2007. The exact purpose of the money was not specified, but Cook said he was trying to protect himself and his family from scandal. (AP)

Pregnant Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie is doing well in a French Riviera hospital and is expected to give birth to twins in "the coming weeks," her doctor said yesterday. Dr. Michel Sussmann gave few details during a brief news conference, declining to reveal the sex of the expected babies or the likely birth date. (Reuters)

Oscar winner Tatum O'Neal, the former child actress who chronicled her struggles with addiction in a 2004 memoir, pleaded guilty yesterday in New York to disorderly conduct stemming from her drug arrest in June. O'Neal was ordered to attend two half-day drug treatment sessions and to pay a $95 fee, court officials said. (Reuters)

Sacha Baron Cohen will star as detective Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell as his loyal assistant, Watson, in an upcoming comedy inspired by tales of the fictional English sleuth, Columbia Pictures said yesterday. Cohen and Ferrell last appeared together in the 2006 auto racing spoof "Talladega Nights." (Reuters)

DMX was arrested yesterday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on outstanding warrants after arriving from Florida. The rapper (real name: Earl Simmons) was held on a $1,075 bond for driving with a suspended license and a $10,000 bond stemming from previous drug charges. Maricopa County Sheriff's Department spokesman Aaron Douglas said that DMX had failed to appear in court and warrants were issued.(AP)

Wesley Snipes will be allowed to leave the United States to work on two movies while his lawyers appeal his tax convictions. Federal judge William Terrell Hodges yesterday approved the actor's motion to travel to London for post-production of "Gallowwalker" and to Bangkok, Thailand, to film "Chasing the Dragon." (AP)

"We put the underwear on the inside of the pants...That's groundbreaking, you know?"-- Will Smith, explaining to Harry Smith on CBS's "The Early Show" how his character Hancock is different from other superheroes