Return to Transcripts main page
Nancy Grace
Mother Accused of Strangling 2-Year-Old Daughter With Bra
Aired March 05, 2012 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Orlando. A beautiful 2-year-old little girl strangled to death. Bombshell tonight. Murder weapon, Mommy`s bra. Hey, Mommy, can you say death penalty?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unthinkable, a mom accused of using her bra to strangle her 2-year-old daughter to death. Mommy allegedly tells police she got into an argument with the baby`s father.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She says she actually wanted to kill herself and had tried to kill herself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But when it didn`t work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Decided instead to kill her baby.
GRACE: OK. What I don`t understand is why?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The detective actually asked her, What happened to the baby? And she says, I killed her. And he says, How did you do that? And she says, With my hands. That`s the honest truth. I used my bra, too. It was the white one.
GRACE: She knew what she was doing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She allegedly strangled her daughter using her bra. The bra, white with hearts, was wrapped around the little 2-year- old`s neck, the child strangled to death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, a superstar in court after claims her husband, the father of her children, spending tens of thousands plus countless hours on on-line porn and alleged lewd acts on camera. After she discovers her husband`s double life, a teenage sex affair, swingers` Web sites, an $80 million battle ensues.
Breaking now, new claims by cover girl Christie Brinkley her husband, Peter Cook, at it again, claiming her alleged porn-crazed ex is a deadbeat dad who bullies the star against a judge`s orders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: America`s supermodel sweetheart, Christie Brinkley, whose iconic beauty launched her to fame, is back in the headlines, but it isn`t pretty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A nasty war brewing between uptown girl, supermodel Christie Brinkley, and her ex-husband, Peter Cook.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It really is the death of a marriage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had hoped to avoid the publicity surrounding this case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her architect hubby was cheating on her with a teenage girl from his office.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Admits he spent thousands of dollars on porn while they were married.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a doozy!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just the pure maliciousness of the statements she put out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brinkley reportedly files papers with the court, saying Cook has been sending abusive e-mails.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Both have filed court documents in a battle over child support payments.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Cook fires back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reportedly calling Brinkley a narcissistic egomaniac.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s a lot of people out here that would benefit from Googling the site "divorcing a narcissist."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you want to do this interview?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She goes back and remembers that I am that person that she raved about in magazine articles. I am that person today that I was then.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Live, Orlando, a beautiful baby girl just 2 years old is an angel tonight. She was murdered, strangled to death. Murder weapon, her mother`s bra. Hey, Mommy, can you say death penalty? Because I can!
Straight out to Robyn Walensky, anchor, reporter with "The Blaze." Robyn, weigh in. What happened?
ROBYN WALENSKY, "THE BLAZE": Well, hey, Nancy. This woman`s name is Nioshka Bello. She is 24 years old. And she actually admits, Nancy, that she murdered her little girl, just 2 years old, Janessa, with her bare hands and a bra.
The detective actually asked her, What happened to the baby? This was back in 2009. And she says, I killed her. And he says, How did you do that? And she said, With my hands. That`s the honest truth. I used my bra, too. It was the white one.
GRACE: OK. What I don`t understand is why. To Ellie Jostad. I don`t understand anything about what happened. Didn`t she live, the mom, Nioshka Bello, live in the home with her parents? How did they not know what was going on? Just take it from the top, Ellie. What happened?
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right. Well, Nancy, what allegedly happened is Nioshka Bello called an ex-boyfriend, apparently begged him to get back with her, take her back, help her out. She says...
GRACE: Oh, good lord in heaven!
JOSTAD: Yes.
GRACE: Is this all about the boyfriend, the male lover, and getting him back again?
JOSTAD: Well, yes.
GRACE: Sounds like Susan Smith all over again.
JOSTAD: That`s the allegation...
GRACE: OK, go ahead.
JOSTAD: ... that she thought -- you know, she`s out of a job, doesn`t have any money. Boyfriend won`t take her back. She says she actually wanted to kill herself and had tried to kill herself, but when that didn`t work, she apparently, for some reason, got frustrated...
GRACE: Put Ellie up! Ellie?
JOSTAD: ... and told police...
GRACE: Ellie?
JOSTAD: Yes?
GRACE: Ellie, tried to kill herself. What, by strangling herself with her own bra? She tried to kill herself. Sounds like Andrea Yates. Sounds like so many other people who go I was going to kill myself, but oops, I committed a murder.
JOSTAD: Right. And that`s what police...
GRACE: Go ahead.
JOSTAD: ... you know, are saying is missing here is that -- an explanation. She apparently wanted to kill herself, but then got frustrated with that, is the word that police used, and then decided instead to kill her baby, tried at first to do with it her hands. She said when that didn`t work, then she actually took off her bra and used that to strangle her baby as she slept, according to this alleged confession.
GRACE: OK. Where was she at the time of the alleged murder?
JOSTAD: You`re right, she was in a home that she shared with her mother and her stepfather.
GRACE: Well, it sounds a lot like tot mom. She`s at home, sitting on the sofa, eating chips, not working. She`s got a 2-year-old little girl. And whoops, the baby ends up dead. Gee, I can`t imagine why nobody wants to date her.
But back to the premise. She actually has stated that she killed the child because she was frustrated when she couldn`t kill herself. Did I get that right, Ellie?
JOSTAD: Yes, that`s right, Nancy.
GRACE: OK. Unleash the lawyers. Richard Herman, long time, no see. How old is your baby now, Richard?
RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Hi, Nancy. Baby will be one year next month.
GRACE: Really? It`s a baby girl, right?
HERMAN: One year. Baby girl.
GRACE: And she`s beautiful.
HERMAN: Beautiful and we`re very blessed.
GRACE: What was it, April 19? Was it April 19?
HERMAN: You got it. Yes.
GRACE: All right. Weigh in defense attorney. What`s your defense for Mommy? Strangled her 2-year-old little girl with a bra.
HERMAN: Mommy`s already...
GRACE: (INAUDIBLE) not hearing...
HERMAN: ... been evaluated -- no, she`s already been evaluated by psychiatrists and psychologists, who said her confession is valid, it was knowing, it was not made under duress and it was truthful. This defense here is...
GRACE: I asked you for the defense.
HERMAN: ... she`s got to plea a deal -- she`s got to make a plea. She`ll get convicted...
GRACE: That`s your best shot, a plea deal?
HERMAN: ... at trial -- yes.
GRACE: You know, it`s funny, Richard Herman, how your whole tone changes when it hits close to home because, typically, you`re arguing, Oh, the police forced her into a confession, it didn`t happen, she was insane, somebody else did it.
OK, Cohen, hit me!
DARRYL COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Seems to me that she was getting ready to be taken to be evaluated. She also twice has had the case postponed because she was incompetent to stand trial. So it`s disingenuous, to me, to say that the confession that she made is going to work.
Having said that, the circumstantial evidence and the other evidence certainly will take care of this woman.
GRACE: To Marc Klaas, president and founder, Klaas Kids Foundation. Marc Klaas, have you seen the photo of this little girl?
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION (via telephone): No, Nancy, I haven`t seen the photo, but it`s all too familiar a scenario. It`s Susan Smith, it`s Andrea Yates all over again.
And typically, what happens is once these women do get to trial, they`re pretty much treated with kid gloves. They are not given the same kind of a sentence that would be handed down had a man committed it. The men would inevitably go to death row. The women inevitably find a way back into society at some point into future.
GRACE: Why is that? Why is that? And it just sounds like Casey Anthony, tot mom, all over again because it`s another young mom at home, living off her parents, not working, has a beautiful baby girl, is miserable with her own life and her own existence. So she kills the baby.
You know, help me out, Marc Klaas.
KLAAS: Well, it`s -- it`s the way the system works, the way the sentencing systems work, the disparities. You could take the exact same crime, and what you`ll find, Nancy, is that black men will be sentenced the highest, then Latino men, and then white men.
And then, if you have exactly the same crime, black women, Latino women, and white women. And it goes across the board on almost any kind of a violent crime in our society. And it`s been like that forever.
GRACE: Out to the lines. Nicole, Montana. Hi, Nicole. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was she -- did she have any psychological issues prior to these incidents, to where she could have snapped? Like, then -- it snapped?
GRACE: OK. Nicole, whatever the defense lawyers might tell you, there`s no such thing as a, quote, "snap" defense. That equals, Oh, I just got mad and I killed somebody. That`s the snap defense.
And that`s just poor impulse control, like people that yank out a gun on the freeway. They get mad in a moment, they pull a gun and shoot somebody. You know, anger is not a defense.
But as to prior mental issues, you just heard one of the defense lawyers blurt out that she had been ruled incompetent to stand trial a couple of times.
Think about Elizabeth Smart. Her attacker was, quote, "incompetent to stand trial" over and over again, until he finally went to trial. What does that mean? That means not that they were insane or incompetent at the time they did the murder or the crime. It means that when they get in court, they act like they cannot assist their lawyer.
It could be because they`re upset. It could be because they`re on medication. It could be a number of things, where the judge feels he`s going to get a reversal if they go to trial and get a conviction. So they wait. They put the trial over for another couple of months and try again. And that`s what`s happened in this case.
To Ellie Jostad, our chief editorial producer. Ellie, do we have any information that she had a mental illness before this?
JOSTAD: Well, actually, her family says that she did try to take her own life when she was in high school. But on the other side of the coin, the family of the little baby -- the father`s family, rather, says that she was violent towards him in the past and that he actually had to call police three times when they lived together because she was attacking him.
GRACE: OK. Ellie, I hear you, but a single failed attempt at suicide in high school and beating up your boyfriend does not insanity make. So I`m going to rephrase to you, Ellie. Do we have indications that she was being treated for insanity or mental or emotional problems?
JOSTAD: No, Nancy, we don`t know of anything like that. And as was brought up before, she was evaluated by two different psychologists, one a psychologist, one a psychiatrist. And they both said to the judge that they believed that she did know what she was doing when she made this alleged confession.
GRACE: Well, Ellie, who was the female "Idol" contender that tried to, quote, "kill herself" by taking aspirin? What was her name?
JOSTAD: Oh, I don`t remember that name. I know what you`re talking about, but I can`t remember the name, either.
GRACE: Help me out, Matt. I`ve got to remember this woman`s name. Dr. Helen Morrison, forensic psychologist (sic) -- oh, Fantasia! I remember. It was Fantasia. Tried to kill herself by taking some aspirin. This time, Mommy tries to kill herself by taking benadryl, all right? My children have to take benadryl sometimes. You don`t die from benadryl.
To Dr. Bill Manion -- hold on, Helen, I`m coming back to you. Benadryl -- is that a legitimate suicide attempt, to take benadryl?
DR. BILL MANION, MEDICAL EXAMINER, NEW JERSEY: No, it doesn`t sound like a legitimate suicide attempt. I don`t even know what the toxic or lethal levels of benadryl are. I haven`t heard of a case of an overdose with benadryl.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: A 2-year-old little girl in bed with her mother -- Mommy now claims she wanted to kill herself, but somehow ends up murdering her 2- year-old baby girl, ligature strangulation. Murder weapon, Mommy`s bra.
Out to John DePetro, WPRO host. John, what do we know about the case? What are the elements the state has put together to prove this?
JOHN DEPETRO, WPRO (via telephone): Nancy, it comes down to the mother telling the police three days after this happened, in the hospital, exactly what happened. They have a recording of it. It`s horrific.
This is a pathetic individual. There`s nothing more serene then a young 2-year-old cuddling with her mother. And instead, this failure of a mother -- it`s too bad she wasn`t successful and had taken her own life, or this child would be alive!
GRACE: John DePetro, WPRO, how did the grandparents, her mother and father, Nioshka Bello`s parents, not know what was going on?
DEPETRO: That`s the thing, Nancy. This is a failure, a troubled young woman, living with them. They were going to be moving. She had no job. She claimed she had -- wasn`t going to have a home, be homeless. But there were other options than killing that poor little 2-year-old Janessa. They knew they had someone who was irresponsible...
GRACE: Well, why couldn`t she -- why couldn`t she move with her parents, John? Why couldn`t she move along with her parents? She`s been freeloading off of them forever.
DEPETRO: Well, she had had, apparently, a problem, a history of trouble with different siblings and with the family. But you raise a good point, Nancy, because who was looking out for this little 2-year-old?
GRACE: To C.W. Jensen, retired Portland police captain. C.W., you have seen so many cases, but -- I don`t know if you`ve seen this child, but a crime like this against a 2-year-old little girl -- I mean, I`m just wondering. It went three days before they finally made the case, and I cannot even imagine the cops and the EMTs that came to the scene to find this little child`s body strangled with a bra.
I don`t know what story she first gave the cops and the EMTs about how the child died, but how do you go about, C.W., proving a case like this?
C.W. JENSEN, RETIRED PORTLAND POLICE CAPTAIN: Well, I mean, they did all the things. I mean, obviously, forensically, as your other guest said, you can tell ligature strangulation. You can also tell strangulation by some damage to bones in the neck. So you`ve got that piece.
And then they got the confession. And then you know what? You could be crazy, but you still understand that you have rights. We`ve heard it in every cop show throughout life. And then the police are very careful in explaining everything to this person. So the best evidence is a person`s own words, and so it sounds like law enforcement did a great job in this case -- and it`s just a tragedy...
GRACE: Well, you know, C.W. -- C.W., how many thousands of times have you or your people given Miranda warnings? Everybody, you know what that is. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be held against you. You have a right to a lawyer, so forth and so on. And what the lawyers tried to claim was that she the did not understand her Miranda rights, and therefore, her confession should be thrown out of court.
Isn`t it true, C.W. Jensen, that not only do cops read people their rights -- multiple times -- but they also give them a Miranda waiver, a written form for them to sign? And this woman signed a Miranda waiver. She knew darn well what she was doing when she told cops she strangled her baby with her own bra.
JENSEN: I have interviewed a lot of goofy people in my career, and sometimes when you are reading people their rights, they knew them before you read them to them because they`ve heard them so many times on TV.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The child strangled to death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two-year-old Janessa.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 22-year-old mother is accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With her bare hands and a bra.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now Mommy is charged with murder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She murdered her little girl, just 2 years old, Janessa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tried at first to do it with her hands.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unthinkable!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s horrific.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When that didn`t work, then she actually took off her bra and used that to strangle her baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her bra wrapped around the little 2-year-old`s neck.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As she slept, according to this alleged confession.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You know, in this case, Dr. Helen Morrison, the baby`s father -- the baby`s father offered to help financially. He offered to fly her to New York, to let the mother and the baby live with him, get her an apartment in Florida until she got on her feet. It wasn`t about money. It was not about money. She had more options than a lot of mothers have.
And Dr. Morrison, why is it we always hear, Oh, I was going to kill myself, but oops, I killed my child instead? How did that happen? And these bogus suicide attempts. Benadryl?
DR. HELEN MORRISON, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: You know, one of the things that people confuse, suicide is serious, but there`s a difference between suicide gesture and actual attempt to commit suicide. It sounded that this woman just picked the first thing that she could see to take out her anger. It was her baby.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. A mom now facing trial after she claims she murdered her 2-year-old little girl with her own bra as the child lay in bed with her.
Out to the lines. To Annamarie in Florida. Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. Thank you so much for what you do, and give your children a hug.
GRACE: I will.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am so upset! You know, you`re an attorney, you`ve got all these attorneys up there. What are we living in, a dumb (ph) society? These people can go to jail, get three hots and a cot and kill their kids!
Jane Velez-Mitchell`s, like, Well, there`s a war on women. I want to know why there`s a war on children! Why is there a war on children today, Nancy? I can`t stand it! What kind of world are we living in?
GRACE: You know, Annamarie, every time I cover one of these stories, I want to just rip this mic off and run. I don`t even want to crank up the car and drive, I want to run home and just look at my twins and see that they`re OK because when I hear stories like this -- I mean, for Pete`s sake, she had it all. She had a boyfriend willing to fly her to Florida, set her up in an apartment, her and her baby, until she got on her feet and got a job. She had parents that had been taking care of her.
She`s not working. She`s not out working and taking care of children, like everybody else in America. I don`t understand it. And then claiming she tried to kill herself with benadryl and Tylenol? Please!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The child strangled to death.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Two-year-old Janessa.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A 22-year-old mother is accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: With her bare hands and a bra.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Now mommy is charged with murder.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She murdered her little girl, just 2 years old, Janessa.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK. To Darryl Cohen and Richard Herman.
Once again, we see a mom murdering her child. And I want to know -- just try, just try to be impartial. Is this a death penalty case? To you, Herman.
RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: In this jurisdiction, Nancy, life in prison is the maximum she can get. Is it death penalty? In jurisdiction that have the death penalty, absolutely. When you have a minor and the murder is committed on a minor, that would qualify as a death penalty, capital murder. But in this jurisdiction, the most she`s facing is life. That`s why they`re going to take a shot at insanity. They`re going to try to knock out the confession. They`re going to do everything they can --
GRACE: But Darryl, Darryl.
HERMAN: -- to try to have her never see the light of day.
GRACE: This could have been a death penalty case and I don`t understand why it`s not.
DARRYL COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, it`s clearly, possibly a death penalty case, but look at the state attorney`s office for the Casey Anthony case. They overcharged her. And the state attorney`s office wants a conviction.
GRACE: Wait a minute. Put him up. You just, you just reversed yourself on appeal. You say this is a death penalty case, but in tot mom, they overcharged. No, you can`t have your cake and eat it, too, Darryl Cohen. This is a death penalty case. Just like tot mom was. Just because there was one nut jury doesn`t mean every other murder mom is going to walk free.
To Karla in Washington. Hi, Karla, what`s your question?
KARLA, CALLER FROM WASHINGTON: Hi, Nancy. I just wanted to let you know first of all that I think you`re a beautiful, wonderful lady and a blessing to us all.
GRACE: Thanks.
KARLA: And I would also like to add, since we`re talking about the Casey Anthony, I`m wondering, do you think that these women are killing their children more often now that Casey did not get punished for killing her child?
GRACE: You know what`s interesting, Karla, I was just asked that the other evening, and I don`t necessarily know that the tot mom verdict had anything to do with it, but I do think that defense lawyers are having a field day with murder moms now. And I don`t know if subconsciously the jury, not guilty in tot mom, has reached so many people or not, whether it`s embedded in their consciousness when they choose to make them act like this, because make no mistake, Karla in Washington, she knew what she was doing.
To Dr. Bill Manion, how long does it take to strangle a child? What, two minutes?
DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, NEW JERSEY: Yes, the child will probably go unconscious within a minute or so, and then you probably would need a little bit longer time, maybe three or four minutes, of complete compression to make the brain so hypoxic, you begin to get brain death. So it --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: And Dr. Manion, what does a child go through? What does a child go through? What do you suffer when you are being suffocated? When you are being strangled by ligature?
MANION: Well, I`m sure it`s a terrible feeling, not to be able to catch your breath. We`ve all had the wind knocked out of us or we`ve all, you know, jumped in the water and haven`t been able to get up to the top fast enough. So it`s a terrible feeling. And I imagine as the brain becomes hypoxic, it`s a terrible headache type of feeling. And as I said, it`s not something done easily. It would take several minutes of very strong applied force to be successful.
GRACE: Bombshell, tonight. New claims by superstar cover girl Christie Brinkley, her husband, Peter Cook, at it again. Claiming her porn-crazed ex is just a deadbeat dad who actually bullies the star against a judge`s orders.
Straight out to Dorothy Cascerceri, senior editor at "In Touch Weekly." Dorothy, you know, if these claims are true, you`d think Peter Cook had had enough, now that he was outed as spending thousands and thousands of dollars on online porn, countless hours. There was the double life with the teenage sex partner. And now adult friend finders.
The claims are now originating because she claims he`s nothing but a deadbeat dad and he`s actually bullying her?
DOROTHY CASCERCERI, SENIOR EDITOR, IN TOUCH WEEKLY: Right, Nancy. You`re exactly correct. There were so many things that came out that were embarrassing for this man. Why is he coming back for more? It turns out that a court-ordered document said that if he was going to bully her online, he would have to pay $5,000 each time he did that. And now Christie Brinkley is saying that he did it 28 times and he owes her $140,000.
GRACE: Let me ask you this, Dorothy Cascerceri, if he owes her nearly 150 grand, is he working?
(LAUGHTER)
CASCERCERI: Well, he`s an architect, Nancy. And we`re not entirely sure what he`s been up to since they had this throwdown, drag-out court battle. But you have to assume that he`s supporting himself somehow. But what he`s actually saying, is that she owes him money.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: OK, so, he must be making a pretty -- he must be making a pretty good living if he can afford $5,000 slaps on the wrist.
To you, Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com, she is claiming he is violating a judge`s order and bullying her, in what way? What do we know?
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, REPORTER, RADAROLINE.COM: She is saying that he is sending horrible e-mails to her. This is a guy who spends a lot of time online. He was in trouble for his Internet porn obsession. And he has been sending her nasty e-mails, complaining about everything about their life. He`s fighting with her about an iPhone bill. He wants her to pay his boat fee. He keeps a very expensive boat in a storage unit. He wants her to pay I think --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: OK. Stop, stop, stop. Alexis, Alexis, please, you`re boring me with all the rich people`s problems. Did I hear that you just said they`re fighting about an iPhone and the boat? What, dock fee? I don`t care. I don`t care about rich people`s problems and their boat fee. What I care about is that he is willing to pay $5,000 a hit, every time he bullies her. Did I get that part straight, Alexis?
TERESZCUK: You did. That`s exactly right. He doesn`t care. He`s apparently sent her 28 messages, and she says that he has to pay her $5,000. He actually says, you know, the rules don`t apply to just me. They`re against Christie, too.
GRACE: OK. Clark Goldband, I want to hear the whole thing. Take it from the top. I want to hear from the beginning.
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: OK, Nancy. Well, this whole happily -- this couple was happily married. It shattered after about 10 years, and here was why it shattered. According to the husband in court himself, he admitted to spending nearly $3,000 --
GRACE: All right. Stop, stop, stop. Before you go any further, just tell me, what is a gold membership with adultfriendfinder.com? What is that? What is a gold membership? What does that entail?
GOLDBAND: Nancy, based on our understanding, that is a premium level of membership on the Web site adultfriendfinder.com, which can be used to find discreet and sexy special relationships.
GRACE: Special sexy -- I`ve never heard it phrased quite like that. OK, so discreet, fun, no strings, young women for older men and masturbation. His profile says, I prefer young, fit girls. Is that on the gold membership at adultfriendfinder.com and he was married to a Cover girl? And he`s online trying to find women?
OK, just stop. Dr. Helen Morrison -- I`m going to come back to you, Clark, to take it from the top.
Dr. Helen Morrison, forensic psychologist. Doctor, help me out here. Because what`s the deal? No matter how beautiful you are, no matter how smart -- Christie Brinkley is smart, too. She`s just not beautiful, she`s smart. No matter how beautiful you are, how smart you are, whether you give birth, risk your live and give birth, what`s the attraction of going online for a guy and masturbating into a Web cam? Explain. He`s got Christie Brinkley, for Pete`s sake.
DR. HELEN MORRISON, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, first, I have no -- he does, I haven`t evaluated him, but most men in this circumstance are so self-absorbed that they constantly need people to tell them how wonderful they are, how perfect they are, how handsome they are, and if he was trying to get Christie to do that, she can`t do that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Cover girl Christie Brinkley battling it out.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Brinkley and Cook are fighting war of words.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A legal battle.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Peter Cook`s dirt y laundry aired in public.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s sleazy, it`s messy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A bizarre sexual fantasy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Surfing porn and a swinger Web site.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: $3,000 a month tab for porn?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Porn and adult meeting sites.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A scandalous sex affair.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: With an 18-year-old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`d made advances verbally toward me first.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Admits hiring the teenage office assistant, hoping to seduce her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I guess it just, you know, escalated.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The former couple`s ugly feud now public again. Brinkley`s attorney claimed dozens of abusive e-mails from Cook reportedly calling Brinkley a narcissistic egomaniac.
CHRISTIE BRINKLEY, FORMER COVER GIRL MODEL: Divorcing a narcissist`s insight about what I`ve been going through.
PETER COOK, CHRISTIE BRINKLEY`S EX HUSBAND: I don`t pose in front of cameras, I`m not walking around with my victory sign.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wants to stop the bullying.
BRINKLEY: Work every day towards peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Clark, who in the world would want to go online? You know, he`s probably talking to some old guy in New Jersey online, thinking he`s talking to some, quote, "young, fit girl." That`s a whole another can of worms.
Take me back to the beginning. Why would anybody divorce Christie Brinkley, to start with?
GOLDBAND: Well, Nancy, if we can just talk about this for one more moment on the masturbation front in this whole story, if you take a look, he`s married to Christie Brinkley. Christie Brinkley herself even raised the point in court, I can`t trust his judgment if he`s willing to do this rather than be with me and the kids.
GRACE: Clark, thank you from your front line reporting, but can I get back to the cause of the divorce and what happened?
GOLDBAND: Sure, Nancy. It was a younger girl in her late teens, she worked at a toy store and Cook came in, shopping for toys --
GRACE: Are you talking about Bianchi?
GOLDBAND: Yes. Bianchi. Diana Bianchi. Apparently thought she was quite cute.
GRACE: Yes.
GOLDBAND: They struck up a chatting relationship. Cook had eventually hired her, you see her on your screen there, to work in his architecture firm. Apparently she posted things on the Web site, did all sorts of odd jobs. At one point that relationship allegedly turned sexual. The two had sex about 10 times, according to Bianchi, and he spent all kinds of money on lavish gifts, including a $15,000 down payment for her Nissan Maxima, a $2,000 London Jeweler`s watch, and wads of cash.
GRACE: OK. What was this, Dorothy Cascerceri, "In Touch Weekly," about him hiding money outside under rocks for the teenage girl to come find?
CASCERCERI: Right, Nancy. He had money underneath rocks on his property. And he also had money hidden behind a painting. I don`t know if he thought, you know, if he hid it and she picked it up, that maybe it didn`t count as him actually handing it over to her. I don`t know what he thought. I don`t know why he was hiding this money in the first place.
GRACE: Dorothy, Dorothy, look, look at your monitor. Look at Christie Brinkley and look at her. I`m not saying she`s unattractive, because she`s cute. She`s a cute little girl. But -- OK, go ahead, Dorothy. Hiding money under rocks.
CASCERCERI: Right. Well, there`s obviously a very big difference to your point, Nancy, between Christie Brinkley and Diana Bianchi. We also know that a court-appointed psychologist deemed Peter Cook, they deemed him -- that he was a narcissist. So, again, you know, he just needed somebody to feed his ego.
GRACE: OK, Dorothy, I`m sorry --
CASCERCERI: And Christie wasn`t doing that.
GRACE: But you`ve got to do a little bit more reporting to tell me a man is a narcissist. That`s not really a news flash.
I want to get to Clark Goldband. What can you tell me about what`s happening in court right now? The alleged bullying? Why are we back in court and why is this guy risking violating a judge`s orders to protect a supermodel, Christie Brinkley? And you know, if Christie Brinkley can`t make it, what does that say for the rest of us? All right?
Go ahead, Clark. Let`s just get back to the court filings. Why are they back in court?
GOLDBAND: Nancy, according to reports, Christie Brinkley filed something with the court saying that he violated this agreement that they had, that he`d be punished $5,000 for every time something nasty is said about her through communication. That`s 28 times, totaling $140,000. She also says that he owes $32,000 in school and camp costs, and according to one -- according to one station, also owed about $6,000 in child support.
He responded, Nancy, with a 91-page filing, just a few days ago. And says that Christie Brinkley owes him over $200,000. It`s a two-way street, and she`s been very nasty to him, and he wants that money.
GRACE: I still don`t understand the bullying. She claims he owes her money, but that`s not really bullying. He claims she owes him money. Where`s the bullying? What`s the bullying aspect, Alexis, in a nutshell?
TERESZCUK: It`s on the e-mails. He`s sending her hateful e-mails. They`re mean. He`s talking about the way that she`s treating the children and what he says she`s trying to divide the children and turn them against him, and she says that he is being unfair and bullying her, cyberbullying.
GRACE: OK. So that sounds like alienation of affection.
Unleash the lawyers, Vikki Ziegler, family law attorney, New York. Richard Herman, renowned defense attorney, Vegas. Darryl Cohen, defense attorney, Atlanta.
OK, Herman, let`s hear it.
HERMAN: Well, Nancy, you know, obviously, this alienation is the claims that he`s making against her. But you`ve got to be kidding me. $143,000 for an alleged violation of language that is aggressive language? Give me a break. These people got to be miserable, they`re wasting their time in court. The lawyers are going to make a huge fees on this. Six- figure fees plus on this.
GRACE: Put up Herman.
HERMAN: This case is going nowhere. But you know, Nancy, three times she has failed marriages. So let`s stop propping her up, OK? Three times, failed. And all that salacious information, that`s pre-2008.
GRACE: You can keep on --
HERMAN: It`s not today.
GRACE: -- and on and on about her failed marriages, but he`s the one masturbating online, not her.
HERMAN: No, no, that`s before 2008.
GRACE: All right, Darryl, with that lead-in, Darryl -- with that lead-in, Darryl, let`s hear your defense.
COHEN: My defense is is, one thing has nothing to do with the other.
HERMAN: Right.
HERMAN: Christie`s an uptown girl. Ask Billy Joel, ask her previous marriages. But that has nothing to do with this. Let`s look at the e- mails. Let`s look at the texts. If he is saying that she`s dividing the kids, maybe she`s doing that. He has every right to be a father, just as she has a right to be a mother. And I agree. This is absurd. This is absolutely absurd.
GRACE: OK. The two of you are going on and on and on about absurdities, but I`m not really hearing any meat to your argument.
To Vikki Ziegler, family law attorney out of New York. Vikki, he`s basically claiming alienation of affections, which is a major claim to level against some ex-spouse. But she is claiming cyberbullying and that he is a deadbeat dad. Are we going to end up with a full-blown hearing in court, Vikki?
VIKKI ZIEGLER, CELEBRITY DIVORCE ATTORNEY: You know, Nancy, it absolutely could happen. And it`s very interesting to me that there`s a court order that says if, in fact, there is this aggressive cyberbullying through e-mail and text, that he would have to pay $5,000 as a penalty. I believe since we don`t -- we don`t actually have the agreement, that they both consented to that, to deal with a major problem during their marriage and pending the divorce.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Jennifer in Michigan. Hi, Jennifer, what`s your question, dear?
JENNIFER, CALLER FROM MICHIGAN: Hi, Nancy. I love your show. My question is, OK, cyberbullying right now is, you know, is supposed to be laws against that, with teenagers, everything else. Why can`t he be charged with cyberbullying if he`s e-mailing her and bullying her like that?
GRACE: You know, good question. To Alexis Tereszcuk, that`s what I keep trying to get to, the heart of her claim regarding cyberbullying. I mean, who pays for the boat slip? You know, I don`t care, repeat, about rich people`s problems, who`s going to pay for the fancy summer camp, don`t care. All right? What happened with the child`s field trip to where was it, Israel or Egypt? Don`t care.
What I care about is what affects everybody, cyberbullying. Not only in schools, but now allegedly amongst grownups in the aftermath of a heated divorce. What do we know about the bullying?
TERESZCUK: Well, what Christie is doing right now is her first legal option. She has gone back to court and she has presented the judge with evidence. She has said this is what he is doing. He`s cyberbullying me. Here are the e-mails, here is what he is saying. She`s laying out her case to -- against him. And this is just the first because she is absolutely being harassed. That`s what she`s saying, she wants it to end. The judge is going to levy fines against her ex-husband. And this is the thing that she wants to do.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Supermodel Christie Brinkley put on a brave face.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It`s back, a nasty war brewing between uptown girl, supermodel Christie Brinkley, and her ex-husband Peter Cook.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Faced against her ex-husband Peter Cook.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Brinkley reportedly files papers with the court.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Architect hubby was cheating on her with a teenage girl from his office.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Admits he spends thousands of dollars on porn while they were married.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And it is a doozy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Saying Cook has been sending abusive e-mails.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Both have filed court documents in a battle over child support payments.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But Cook fires back.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Reportedly calling Brinkley a narcissistic egomaniac.
BRINKLEY: There`s a lot of people out there that would benefit from Googling the site, divorcing a narcissist. And it will give you a lot of insight about what I`ve been going through.
COOK: This is not my idea of fun.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Brinkley also accuses Cook of surfing porn and swinger Web sites so frequently.
BRINKLEY: It really is the death of a marriage.
BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: Why do you want to do this interview?
COOK: She goes back and remembers that I am that person she raved about in magazine articles, I am that person today that I was then.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But Brinkley`s side allegedly says Cook is the one who needs to pay.
BRINKLEY: We all need to work every day towards peace.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Will another courtroom smackdown take place?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Vikki Ziegler, family law attorney out of New York, explain to me certainly in your practice which is quite extensive, you`ve seen what she is alleging, the cyberbullying from her ex. Explain what is it.
ZIEGLER: Yes, Nancy, this is very common. And what we normally know it as is harassment. Because most people are communicating not over the phone any longer, they`re doing it through e-mail and text messaging, it becomes a document that actually states you`re harassing somebody, you`re annoying them, you`re calling them, you`re threatening them, and therefore you need to stop it in the family court, if not, you can take it to a criminal or a civil charge of harassment.
GRACE: Let`s stop and remember Marine Lance Corporal Anthony Dilisio, 20, Macomb, Michigan, killed in Afghanistan. Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal, NATO International Security Assistance Force medal. Loves sports, working out, time with nieces and nephews. Leaves behind parents, Tina and Lorenzo, stepbrother Tammy, brother Dino, Joe, Angelo, sisters Lisa and Marie.
Anthony Dilisio, American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you. And happy birthday to South Carolina friend, Betty, mother of four, grandmother of nine. Homemaker and breast cancer survivor.
Happy birthday.
Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night friend.
END
