The agreement to which she referred enumerated tens of thousands of dollars in payments due from Tonken, much of it connected with charity appearances. According to Cole's attorney, Bert Fields, the singer ultimately received $75,000 from Tonken and jewelry valued at many thousands more from Cartier, Dunhill and elsewhere. "She and Tonken were very good friends," Fields said.
According to Fields, Cole believed some of the jewelry had been sent as a direct gift from Cartier. But a sheaf of invoices, now under review by state and federal investigators, shows that the jeweler charged Tonken nearly $400,000 in 1997 for dozens of luxury items as he was organizing a Metropolitan Museum of Art benefit keyed to its 150th anniversary in 1997.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday December 23, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 39 words Type of Material: Correction
Charity events -- Not all of the charities and institutions mentioned in an article on the front page of Section A on Dec. 8 about event promoter Aaron Tonken had knowledge of his plans or his dealings with celebrities.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday December 26, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 93 words Type of Material: Correction
Aaron Tonken -- A Dec. 8 article about event promoter Aaron Tonken on the front page of Section A said Bill Cosby had been sent a contract by the William Morris Agency stating that he was to receive a luxury sedan for a charity event. A Steve Lopez column in the California section Dec. 10 made a similar reference to the car. The article and the column should have made it clear that the sedan would have been for Cosby's use only as transportation to and from the event, which never was held.
Those invoices and similar paperwork from the other companies contain notations linking the pieces with a long list of celebrities and talent managers who, like Cole, were associated with events that gave Tonken's career its first big boost in the late 1990s.
Documents identify more than $60,000 worth of jewelry given to actress Angela Bassett and her husband, Courtney Vance, who attended at least two Tonken-organized benefits. A publicist for Bassett said the couple had believed the jewelry was a direct gift from Cartier. But they learned otherwise when Bassett went to have a piece sized and was told that Tonken still owed the company thousands of dollars.
Actor-producer Alan Hamel said he and his wife, Suzanne Somers, never saw the $34,000 in jewelry attributed to them on one Cartier invoice. But he acknowledged that the couple received business-class tickets to London. They were billed to Tonken at a cost of almost $20,000 after Somers performed at a benefit for the John Wayne Cancer Institute.
Hamel said there was no charge for the performance. In a March 1998 letter to Tonken, however, he indicated otherwise.
"Suzanne and I have waited long enough!" Hamel wrote. "I wanted you to know that if we don't get our airline tickets and jewelry within five business days I am going to take out a full page ad in the Hollywood Reporter to tell the entertainment community about you. I also will inform and send an invoice for payment to Michael Wayne of the John Wayne Cancer Institute for Suzanne's performance."
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Gifts to Star Associates
Not all of the goodies that Tonken dished out went to celebrities. At times, he bestowed gifts -- paid for, government investigators say, with money that was supposed to be going into the coffers of various charities -- upon their handlers as well.
