LOS ANGELES -- Cristina Ferrare sobbed and passionately embraced John De Lorean in the moments after her husband's acquittal on drug charges, then shedarted into the court press room to telephone their 12-year-old son.
'Let me talk to Zack,' she sobbed into the phone, then blurted to her son,'He's not guilty! He's not guilty!'
Mrs. De Lorean, wearing a white linen suit with lace, sank to her knees amid dozens of micophones and cried, 'We won, honey, we won.'
It was the end of a nightmare for Cristina Ferrare, one of America's top fashion models until her husband's arrest on cocaine trafficking charges sent her career, in her words, 'straight down the toilet.'
She complained that friends quit answering their phone calls, their credit cards were cancelled and for the first time money became a source of daily worry.
But her support for De Lorean, a man 25 years her senior, was unwavering and much evidenced by their courtroom cuddling and the long, loving gazes she cast. She was literally at his side from the very start of his trial.
Before telephoning Zachary, Mrs. De Lorean broke into tears and hugged her mother, who was sitting next to her, when the jurors announced their verdicts -- innocent on all eight counts.
De Lorean then came over and hugged his wife. Tears were streaming down her face, and she cried, 'Oh, God.'
While De Lorean, 59, maintained a bland demeanor throughout the trial, Cristina frequently worked herself into a righteous fury.
She stormed from the courtroom each time prosecutors played the famous tape of De Lorean's arrest, was heard to stage-whisper profanities and once was admonished for mouthing an obscenity at a prosecution witness.
Cristina Ferrare, 34, the daughter of a Cleveland butcher, married John De Lorean one month before he quit General Motors in 1973. It was her first marriage and De Lorean's third.
De Lorean won custody of his adopted son, Zachary, 12, from a previous marriage and the couple has a daughter, Kathryn, 6.
Raised a Catholic, Mrs. De Lorean became a born-again evangelical Christian several years ago and convinced her husband to join her faith. Together, they were baptized in a ceremony in the pool behind their Bedminster, N.J., mansion.
When she was atop the modeling world, Cristina Ferrare's picture graced the covers of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan magazines. Since De Lorean's October 1982 arrest, her only work has been promotional spots for an eyewear company and a dress designer, Albert Capraro.
He was commissioned to piece together her 18-piece wardrobe for De Lorean's trial, making her stand out and dazzle spectators in the drab courtroom and surroundings.
During the trial, she spent weekends promoting her new health-and-diet book, 'Style,' flying around the country, but always returning in time for the Tuesday-through-Friday proceedings.
She told reporters she wanted to call the book 'Having It All And What To Do After You Lose It,' but her publisher nixed the idea.
'I don't react to anything anymore,' she said during an impromptu interview that began one day when she wandered into the press room to cadge a cigarette. 'In the beginning, I used to cry. Now it rolls off my back.'
Mrs. De Lorean said she and her husband tried to live 'as normally as possible' throughout the trial, staying at her mother's West Los Angeles home, going to a health spa each day and taking their children to the park on weekends.
