Neighbor Describes Clark Rockefeller as a Con, Fraud
By DAVID SCHOETZ, SCOTT MICHELS and MICHELE McPHEE
July 29, 2008
From the moment Clark Rockefeller arrived in the town of Cornish, N.H., many in the tight-knit community had suspicions about his murky back story, according to a neighbor whose family owns a home on the same street as the kidnap suspect's property.
"He's a con, a fraud," said Sheila Gallagher, who knew Rockefeller from neighborhood cocktail and dinner parties in the former artist's colony. "You could tell that literally within five minutes of meeting him."
The newcomer with a famous name who claimed to have a large collection of original Mark Rothko paintings fashioned himself as a "philanthropist." But he had no clear job and did not always come through on the commitments he allegedly made to local nonprofit organizations and the lavish offers he would drop on neighbors.
"He would say, 'Come on my Learjet,' and the day would come and there would be no Learjet," Gallagher said, adding that Rockefeller's business executive wife, Sandra, was seldom around.
Rockefeller also was paranoid about his property, erecting gates and building what Gallagher described as a moat around the perimeter of his historic house, which belonged to American Impressionist painter Thomas Dewing and is now on the market.
The one thing that was clear, Gallagher said, is that Rockefeller adored his tow-headed daughter, Reigh.
Rockefeller, 48, is the sole suspect in the alleged kidnapping of his 7-year-old daughter in Boston Sunday. Authorities say they believe Rockefeller took off with the girl for New York, where a 72-foot catamaran may await the fugitive father and his child.
Boston police have issued an arrest warrant for Rockefeller on charges of custodial kidnapping, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The suspect's puzzling profile continued to evolve today as the Boston Police Department announced that they had found the SUV used in his daughter's kidnap and were interviewing a livery driver who turned himself in to authorities for questioning. At the same time, the Coast Guard continued to scour New York marinas for a yacht named "Serenity," which could be the next stop in his abduction plan.
"Federal, state and local authorities are doing a sweep of the marinas, trying to find a matching description on the vessel," Patrick Montgomery, a Coast Guard spokesman in New York City, told ABCNews.com.
Clark Rockefeller was last seen in New York City's Grand Central Station on Sunday night, about seven hours after he allegedly executed the kidnap during a visit supervised by a social worker, according to police.
Rockefeller's plan allegedly involved an unidentified male driver stopping a black SUV with Massachusetts tags in traffic near the Boston Public Gardens. When the car stopped, Boston police said, Rockefeller opened the door, hoisted the child, who goes by the nickname "Snooks," into the vehicle and climbed in. As Rockefeller and his accomplice sped off with the girl in the car, the social worker was mildly injured in an attempt to hold on to the fleeing vehicle.
Boston police officials say that a livery driver who admitted to being behind the wheel of the SUV used in the kidnap turned himself in and has been "fully cooperative" with investigators. The unidentified man had no prior knowledge of a kidnapping plot, officials said.
Rockefeller, who police say uses a range of aliases, may have been heading from New York City to Long Island to pick up a recently purchased boat called "Serenity," according to Boston police, one of several law enforcement agencies in two states working to catch Rockefeller and safely reunite the child with her mother, Sandra Boss.
Boston police detectives are sorting through stories that Rockefeller told friends in Boston about wanting to travel to Alaska, Peru, and Bermuda on the yacht, according to a high-ranking police official with direct knowledge of the case. The official confirmed to ABCNews.com that Clark Rockefeller told an aquaintance that he used "$300,000 in gold bars" to buy the boat.
Authorities are also looking into a possible credit card purchase in which Rockefeller bought two pairs of matching father-daughter outfits, the official said.
Boston police released images this afternoon of a pair of dresses that Rockefeller recently bought that Reigh might be wearing.
Montgomery, the Coast Guard spokesman, declined to offer additional details about the search for the catamaran, which would be capable of long trips, including ones to Bermuda or the Caribbean.
International Cooperation
Even if Rockefeller succeeds in leaving port to make a run for a foreign country by sea, local authorities may be waiting for his arrival. Douglas McNabb, a criminal defense lawyer who specializes in international extradition, told ABCNews.com that local authorities in foreign countries typically cooperate with U.S. law enforcement to track down, arrest and extradite fugitives.
Though Rockefeller is not a descendant of John D. Rockefeller, the wealthy New York industrialist, he apparently did not dissuade other people from assuming they may be related.
When the Rev. Brian Marsh of Trinity Church in Cornish, where Rockefeller and Boss attended church until about two years ago, asked about Rockefeller's famous last name, he said Rockefeller didn't answer him directly.
Instead, he took out a pocketknife with the name "Nelson Rockefeller" on it, Marsh said. "He implied a connection."
John Hammond, chairman of the local board of selectmen in Cornish, said Rockefeller claimed he worked as a physicist. "Things were always kind of vague with him," Hammond said. "I never got concrete answers. He never really talked in specifics."
Fraser Seitel, a spokesman for the John D. Rockefeller family, told ABCNews.com that Clark Rockefeller is not a descendant of the wealthy industrialist family of New York.
Boston police say the kidnapping suspect has used several names in the past, including J.P. Clark Rockefeller, James Frederick, Clark Mill Rockefeller and Michael Brown.
Detectives are working on trying to determine the work history and identity of Rockefeller. "We have a team assigned to work 'Who is Clark Rockefeller?' No one seems to know who this guy really is,'' said the official with knowledge of the case.
'Very Involved' With Daughter
Clark Rockefeller and Boss, who reportedly married in the early 1990s on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, divorced in 2007. A judge impounded the divorce case file at the couple's request.
Boss, an executive level consultant who attended Harvard Business School, was awarded custody of their daughter and successfully changed the child's name from Reigh Rockefeller to Reigh Boss.
Rockefeller was allowed supervised visits with his daughter. On Sunday afternoon, when the alleged kidnapping took place, the child and her mother were in Boston from their current home in London so that Rockefeller could see his daughter.
Rev. Marsh said that Rockefeller was "very involved and loving toward his daughter."
"The Clark that I knew was very affable and friendly," he said in an interview with ABCNews.com. "There was nothing that was evident that would have been considered terribly unusual. He was very solicitous toward his daughter."
Marsh described Reigh as "an extremely bright, engaging child."
"She was friendly, very curious; really a wonderful little girl," he said.
In the hours after the alleged kidnapping, Sandra Boss did not request an Amber Alert, telling Boston police that her ex-husband "wouldn't hurt a fly,'' and added that she did not think Reigh "was in any danger," the Boston police official said.
But the Massachusetts State Police broadcast an Amber Alert for the girl after her mother admitted that Rockefeller "had a tendency to be mean to the girl when she was bad,'' the source said.
Ordinarily, Massachusetts officials do not use the Amber Alert system for custodial kidnappings, but after the social worker was injured trying to stop the SUV that snatched up the child and her father, investigators agreed that there should be a statewide manhunt for Rockefeller and his daughter, said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.
"There was someone injured, and there was obviously a very elaborate plan, so we thought it was appropriate to use the Amber Alert system,'' Driscoll said. New York City Police declined to broadcast an Amber Alert, even after Rockefeller was reportedly spotted at Grand Central Terminal.
Boston Police, along with FBI agents and State Police investigators, have set up a command center in the BRIC intelligence unit at BPD headquarters to handle the phone calls that have flooded in from tipsters, Driscoll said.
Rockefeller is a former board director of the Algonquin Club of Boston, a private dining club founded in 1888 that is just blocks from where the alleged kidnapping took place. Lassaad Riahi, the general manager at the Algonquin Club, told ABCNews.com that Rockefeller resigned his membership from the club three months ago "on his own terms."
Sandra Boss, the child's mother, is a senior partner in the London office of McKinsey & Company. She has done consultant work for New York Sen. Charles Schumer and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and has ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
A message left by ABCNews.com at the Four Seasons hotel, where police say Boss and her daughter were guests, was not returned Monday. Boss has since checked out of the hotel.
Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Child Welfare Agency, told ABCNews.com that the department has had previous interactions with the Rockefeller family.
Reigh is 4 feet tall, weighs 50 pounds and has blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink-and-white sun dress and red shoes.
Clark Rockefeller is 5 feet 6 inches tall with a stocky build, thinning blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue Lacoste shirt and khaki pants.
Clark Rockefeller, 48, was last seen in New York City's Grand Central Station Sunday night, about seven hours after he allegedly executed a plan to kidnap his daughter, 7-year-old Reigh, during a visit in Boston supervised by a social worker. Authorities say Rockefeller and the child may be heading for a 72-foot catamaran on the coast of Long Island.
(FBI/AP Photo)
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gwenPosted:
Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:21 am
ALIASES MADE EX FEAR HER CROCK FELLER
ASKED COURT TO LIMIT FAKER'S VISITS TO GIRL HE 'KIDNAPPED'
By LORENA MONGELLI in Boston and CARL CAMPANILE and JEANE MacINTOSH in NY
Last updated: 6:40 am
July 30, 2008
Posted: 3:48 am
July 30, 2008
The wife of the phony New York "Rockefeller" who allegedly kidnapped their 7-year-old daughter grew so suspicious of his bizarre name game that she feared for the child's safety, authorities said yesterday.
Sandra Boss, 41, even convinced a judge to issue an order limiting his access to the little girl when she finalized her divorce from him several months ago. Her now-ex-hubby calls himself Clark Rockefeller - but he has used at least four aliases during decades of living a wealthy lifestyle in Manhattan, New Hampshire and Boston, law-enforcement sources said.
"[Boss] was aware of the aliases," an official in Boston said yesterday. "That's one of the reasons for the supervised visits."
Authorities said they believe Rockefeller may be trying to flee to Bermuda or Peru aboard a 72-foot yacht called Serenity, which he had docked on Long Island - and for which he paid $300,000 in gold bars, according to the Boston Herald.
But police in Bermuda's said last night there was no indication the craft had entered its waters.
Rockefeller, 48, was last seen at Grand Central Terminal on Sunday night. Hours earlier - during a supervised Boston visit with daughter Reigh "Snooks" Boss - he hustled the child into a black SUV driven by a friend and fled, police said.
Boston police said they found the vehicle and were questioning the driver yesterday.
Authorities also were talking to another apparently unwitting accomplice - a woman who dropped the dad and daughter off at Grand Central, the Herald reported. The woman claimed Rockefeller asked her, "Are you sure you don't want to come with us on a [six-month] cruise?" before leaving to supposedly take a cab to a marina.
Cops released photos of dresses they believe he bought the girl to wear on the run.
Rockefeller's arranged Sunday visit with his daughter was the first since the new court order. Reigh lives in London with Boss, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co.
Rockefeller is not a descendant of John D. Rockefeller or his wealthy industrialist family, according to reps for that family. But over the years, he has implied a connection, pals said. On one occasion, he even produced a pocketknife that bore the name "Nelson Rockefeller," the former governor and vice president
Before he was married, Clark Rockefeller lived in the Big Apple, where he was a member of the St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, sources said. He also hobnobbed at the Metropolitan and Knickerbocker Clubs.
"Everyone knew him. They'd call him 'Mr. Rockefeller,' " said one pal.
Over the years, he told wildly different stories about his background. He claimed to be a math expert, a physicist, an investment manager - even a secret agent doing work for the Pentagon.
Investigators have admitted they don't know who he really is - or whether he even has a valid Social Security number.
"I don't think anyone in his life knew - including Sandra - what was real and what wasn't," said a longtime friend of Boss.
"People would get interested and look into it, but they'd never get far."
At one point, one of Boss' relatives discovered that Rockefeller lied when he said he went to Yale, but nothing came of it.
Boss and Rockefeller married in Nantucket in 1995 but the nuptials were not announced, a friend said, because he was "completely against it."
Once the couple moved to Boston, the cloak-and-dagger act continued. A confidant there said Rockefeller had confided "when the baby was born, it was very secretive."
He didn't refer to Boss as his wife, but as "the baby's mother."
During happier times, he and his wife also owned and spent some of their time in one of tony Cornish, NH's, famed mansions, known as the Doveridge.
When writer Alma Gilbert-Smith tried to feature the home in her book, Rockefeller refused to allow it to be photographed, telling her "he was doing some very important, hush-hush work for the Pentagon."
Back in Manhattan, Rockefeller would hold parties for artists, and was considered a knowledgeable collector of modern art.
"One time, he had to switch apartments because one of the paintings he purchased couldn't fit in the one he had," a friend said.
Rockefeller had a dog, a Gordon Setter he named Yeats, and a weakness for Stilton cheese, said one former pal.
"He would have Stilton and sherry. He couldn't get the right stuff here. He would get the cheese shipped [from overseas]."
But he was notoriously tight, too.
"He threw a couple of parties and he was too cheap to supply the booze - it was BYOB," a friend said.
MYSTERY: Sandra Boss, with daughter Reigh, didn't know the realname of her ex.
How upsetting it must be for that mother - knowing he had supervised visits and still have him be able to snatch her. I am local to this story (Boston) and they showed her mother just kind of collapsing - so freaking sad!! She obviously did what she could to protect her daughter against someone she didn't trust and it did not work.
I also grew up in New Hampshire - have no idea why they are calling Cornish 'tony'. Just a very small town in NH. Not one that is considered wealthy by any means!
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gwenPosted:
Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:25 pm
Rockefeller and Missing Daughter Spotted in Caribbean
Friday, August 01, 2008
A mysterious millionaire and his abducted daughter, Reigh Boss, have been spotted on a Caribbean island having arrived by yacht on Thursday, the FBI has been told.
Clark Rockefeller, 48, has been on the run since snatching his 7-year-old daughter during a visit in Boston, last Sunday.
The manhunt turned to the Turks and Caicos Islands yesterday after reports that the pair had been seen twice on the island of Providencials.
Hubert Hughes, deputy commissioner of the islands’ police, said they had been seen at the hospital at 9:30am on Thursday and five hours later at a convenience store.
In both sightings the girls hair was described as cut short like a boy, said Hughes. “It is a believed sighting, but we’re not positive,” he added.
The FBI has said that it is believes Reigh might be disguised as a boy while her father is using a passport with the name Michael Brown.
Rockefeller told friends he had bought a 72 foot catamaran and planned to sail to the Caribbean or South America. There have been previous unconfirmed sightings of the pair New York and Delaware.
Meanwhile, Sandra Boss asked her ex-husband, Clark Rockefeller, to return their daughter, Reigh Boss, who goes by the nickname "Snooks" in a YouTube video. In the video, released by the Boston Police Department, Boss told Rockefeller that there must be a better way to deal with their differences.
"We both love her dearly and have only her best interests and well-being at heart," Boss said. "I ask you now, please, please bring Snooks back. There has to be a better way for us to solve our differences than this way."
Boss also addressed her daughter.
"I love you, I miss you so much. And remember you're always a princess," Boss said.
The FBI announced Thursday that Clark Rockefeller, who allegedly snatched his daughter Sunday during a visit supervised by a social worker and then fled in an SUV driven by another person, may have disguised Reigh as a boy.
Police Dismiss Rockefeller, Missing Daughter Sighting in Caribbean
Friday, August 01, 2008
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Boston police dismissed several witness reports on Friday that a high-society man who allegedly abducted his 7-year-old daughter was spotted in the Caribbean the day before.
Employees at an auto store and at a convenience store said they recognized Clark Rockefeller and his daughter Reigh Boss from photos as the people they helped the day before, Turks and Caicos Sgt. Calvin Chase said Friday.
But the sightings were investigated and found not to be credible, Boston Police spokesman Eddy Chrispin said.
"It definitely was not him," Chrispin said.
Rockefeller and his daughter were last seen at New York City's Grand Central Terminal on Sunday, hours after he allegedly ran off with her during a supervised visit. The girl has been living in London with her mother.
Police initially suspected Rockefeller was trying to flee to Bermuda or Peru on a yacht docked in Long Island. But authorities say he may have planted false clues to throw off investigators. Many other reported sightings have been made, but none have panned out.
Rockefeller Allegedly Bought Gold Before He Fled
Gold coins can be used anywhere in the world, store owner says.
By MICHELE McPHEE and SCOTT MICHELS
Aug. 1, 2008
Clark Rockefeller bought $300,000 in gold coins that can be used anywhere in the world weeks before he allegedly kidnapped his seven-year-old daughter and left the country, the owner of a precious metals shop told ABCNews.com.
Ken Murphy, 42, the owner of Boston Bouillon, said Rockefeller bought 300 American Eagle gold coins last month. The coins are worth $1000 each, Murphy said.
He said Rockefeller, who went by the name Clark Rock when he came into the office, one of many aliases Rockefeller has allegedly used, said he had recently won a patent lawsuit and was investing the proceeds in gold.
"You can use them anywhere," Murphy said of the gold coins. "They can be convertible into cash anywhere."
Murphy said Rockefeller carried the gold coins, which weighed almost 19 pounds, out of the store in a briefcase. Murphy said ther money was wired to him from a bank account under the name Clark Rock.
Earlier this week a Boston police official with knowledge of the case said Rockefeller told one acquaintance that he used "$300,000 in gold bars" to buy a boat. Police believe Rockefeller may have fled the country on a recently-bought yacht named "Serenity."
Acting on a tip from a police source, ABC News located Murphy on Friday.
The revelation about the gold coins comes as police on the island of Turks and Caicos said Rockefeller and his daughter, Reigh, were spotted buying supplies on the island. Police say Rockefeller abducted the girl during a supervised visit in Boston on Sunday
But the sightings were investigated and determined to be false, said Boston Police Department Spokesman Eddy Chrispin. "We've determined it was not him," he said.
Det. Sgt Calvin Chase of the Turks and Caicos police told ABCNews.com that Rockefeller and his daughter ? who was supposedly dressed like a boy and had her hair cut short ? were spotted Thursday at a Napa Auto parts store and a local 7-11 convenience store.
In a brief but heart-wrenching statement on Thursday, Rockefeller's ex-wife, Sandra Boss, appealed to Rockefeller to return Reigh, in her first public statement since the girl allegedly was abducted.
The statement came just hours after the U.S. Attorney's Office issued a federal kidnapping warrant for Rockefeller.
Authorities believe Rockefeller kidnapped his daughter during a supervised visit on Sunday. A black SUV pulled up and Rockefeller allegedly lifted the child into the car, eluding a social worker who was overseeing the visitation with his daughter and tried to stop the vehicle. The child lost her doll and backpack in the commotion.
If you have any information about this case, click here to contact the Boston Police Department.
From there, police say, Rockefeller and Reigh were dropped by an unwitting livery driver -- who since has cooperated with police -- at a Boston hospital where 30-year-old Aileen Ang, an acquaintance of Rockefeller's he met at a Boston sailing club, picked the father and daughter up and drove them to New York City.
Since then reported sightings of the man and the girl have been called in to police from around the country.
Federal authorities told ABC News that Rockefeller may have changed the girl's appearance to look like a boy.
"It's been brought to our attention her hair may have been cut short so she would resemble a boy," said Russell Kleber, an FBI special agent based in Boston.
The FBI also wants people to know that Reigh wears prescription glasses, though she is not seen wearing them in any of the published photos.
The mystery behind Reigh's disappearance has only been complicated by the shady history of her father. "Nobody knows who this guy is," a high-ranking Boston police official assigned to the task force in charge of investigating Rockefeller's background told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "He is a ghost."
Boston police said investigators have not located a valid Social Security number for Clark Rockefeller. They have also found no wedding certificate documenting his marriage to Boss, the mother of the missing child who got custody of their daughter, Reigh, after their 2007 divorce, the official said.
The task force has not found any work history for Rockefeller, who told one former neighbor in New Hampshire that he was a "physicist" and fashioned himself as a "philanthropist" who sat on the boards of various nonprofits.
Investigators also are unclear about Rockefeller's education history, the official said, despite reports that he commonly told acquaintances he attended Yale and Harvard. Some people have told authorities that Rockefeller said that his parents died in a car crash when he was young; others were told he was homeschooled as a kid.
The Boston Police Department last placed Rockefeller at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. He had told Ang that he was heading for a boat he had recently purchased, a 72-foot catamaran called Serenity.
Boston police detectives have been sifting through stories that Rockefeller told friends in Boston about wanting to travel to Alaska, Peru and Bermuda on the yacht, according to a high-ranking police official with direct knowledge of the case.
Late Tuesday, Boston police released two photos of dresses they believe Rockefeller may have purchased on Sunday before the alleged kidnapping.
A Delaware woman came forward Tuesday and reported seeing a well-dressed man who matched Rockefeller's description and was with a young girl at a car dealership. The sighting has not been confirmed, but authorities are investigating the report.
Rockefeller, who has been connected to several aliases, is not a descendant of John D. Rockefeller, the wealthy New York industrialist, but he apparently did not dissuade other people from assuming they may be related.
When the Rev. Brian Marsh of Trinity Church in Cornish, N.H., where Rockefeller and Boss attended church until about two years ago, asked about Rockefeller's famous last name, he said Rockefeller didn't answer him directly.
Instead, he took out a pocketknife with the name "Nelson Rockefeller" on it, Marsh said. "He implied a connection."
Other neighbors in Cornish, a former artist's colony where Rockefeller and his wife Sandra purchased a historic property, described the kidnapping suspect as "elusive" and "vague" about personal details. They said he was a doting dad, but described him as paranoid, noting that he built a mote around the property and set up a security perimeter.
Rockefeller, known for his preppy attire, also boasted an extensive art collection that he said included several original works by Mark Rothko.
Rockefeller and Boss, who reportedly married in the early 1990s on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, divorced in 2007. A judge impounded the divorce case file at the couple's request.
Boss, an executive level consultant who attended Harvard Business School, was awarded custody of their daughter and successfully changed the child's name from Reigh Rockefeller to Reigh Boss.
Rockefeller was allowed supervised visits with his daughter. On Sunday afternoon, when the alleged kidnapping took place, the child and her mother were in Boston from their current home in London so that Rockefeller could see his daughter.
Ordinarily, Massachusetts authorities do not use the Amber Alert system for custodial kidnappings, but after the social worker was injured trying to stop the SUV that snatched up the child and her father, investigators agreed that there should be a statewide manhunt for Rockefeller and his daughter, said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.
Rockefeller is a former board director of the Algonquin Club of Boston, a private dining club founded in 1888 that is just blocks from where the alleged kidnapping took place. Lassaad Riahi, the general manager at the Algonquin Club, told ABCNews.com that Rockefeller resigned his membership from the club three months ago "on his own terms."
Sandra Boss, the child's mother, is a senior partner in the London office of McKinsey & Company. She has done consultant work for New York Sen. Charles Schumer and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and has ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Reigh is 4 feet tall, weighs 50 pounds and has blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink-and-white sun dress and red shoes.
Clark Rockefeller is 5 feet 6 inches tall with a stocky build, thinning blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue Lacoste shirt and khaki pants.
Fox News reporting Clark Rockefeller arrested and in custody in Maryland.
No word on his daughter.
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gwenPosted:
Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:01 pm
Heli wrote:
Fox News reporting Clark Rockefeller arrested and in custody in Maryland.
No word on his daughter.
Thank goodness...
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HeliPosted:
Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:02 pm
It's being reported that he turned himself in, but still no word on the child.
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gwenPosted:
Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:02 pm
ROCKEFELLER CAUGHT
'SNOOKS' IS SAFE
Last updated: 4:55 pm
August 2, 2008
Posted: 4:11 pm
August 2, 2008
The fugitive father who posed as a phony Rockefeller and kidnapped his own daughter off a Boston street was taken into police custody in Baltimore this afternoon after a week on the run.
Clark Rockefeller's kidnapped 7-year-old daughter, Reigh "Snooks" Boss, was safe and sound and in police hands, law enforcement sources said.
Details of his capture were not immediately clear. A spokesman for the Baltimore FBI referred all calls to the Boston police.
Officials in Boston would only say they were holding a press conference later today where they would answer all questions
Rockefeller taken into FBI custody in Mount Vernon
Baltimore Sun
By Gadi Dechter | Sun reporter
5:40 PM EDT, August 2, 2008
Clark Rockefeller, the subject of a national manhunt after being accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter during a supervised visit in Boston, was taken into custody today in Mount Vernon, said Special Agent Rich Wolf of the FBI's Baltimore field office.
FBI agents were tipped off to Rockefeller's presence here by a real estate agent who leased him an apartment in Baltimore, according to a police source familiar with the investigation. The source spoke to The Sun on condition of anonymity because the kidnapping case is being handled by federal authorities.
According to the source, federal agents have been watching Rockefeller's Baltimore apartment for "a couple of days" and also located his boat at a city marina.
The whereabouts of Rockefeller's daughter, Reigh Boss, were unclear.
The 48-year-old father allegedly made elaborate plans to take his daughter, fleeing a social worker during a supervised visit last weekend and setting up two drivers to take them to New York City. They were last seen at Grand Central Terminal in New York on Sunday night.
Police initially suspected Rockefeller was trying to flee to Bermuda or Peru on a yacht docked in Long Island. But authorities later believed Rockefeller may have planted false clues to throw investigators off his trail.
Boston police refused to comment before a news conference scheduled for 6P.M.
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PerryPeabodyPosted:
Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:09 pm
updated 28 minutes ago
CNN- With Video of Law Enforcement Statement
Dad accused of kidnapping daughter in custody
NEW: Tip leads authorities to Clark Rockefeller; he's tricked into leaving apartment
Rockefeller, 48, turns himself in to FBI in Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday
His daughter, 7-year-old Reigh Storrow Boss, is with authorities, agent says
Rockefeller is accused of kidnapping Reigh during his first supervised visit
(CNN) -- A man accused of kidnapping his daughter was taken into custody by the FBI on Saturday, and his daughter is with authorities, an FBI agent said.
Police in Boston, Massachusetts, say accused kidnapper Clark Rockefeller had several aliases.
An anonymous tip led authorities to an apartment in Baltimore, Maryland, where Clark Rockefeller was staying with his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh Storrow Boss, said Edward Davis, the Boston, Massachusetts, police commissioner.
The apartment, in Baltimore's Mount Vernon section, was near a marina where Rockefeller's 26-foot catamaran was docked, Davis said.
Investigators tricked Rockefeller into leaving his apartment by calling him to tell him that his boat was taking on water. As soon as he left the building, FBI agents arrested him and found Reigh in the apartment, Davis said at a news conference in Boston. Watch Davis describe the arrest » http://tinyurl.com/5e2qcv
Reigh "appears to be unharmed" and was "excited" to see the law enforcement officials, Davis said. Her mother, Sandra Boss, is en route to Baltimore to pick her up.
Rockefeller, 48, allegedly abducted the girl during a supervised visit last Sunday.
A social worker overseeing the visit told police that Rockefeller was carrying his blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter as they walked down a street in Boston, Massachusetts, when a black SUV pulled up next to them.
Rockefeller jumped into the vehicle, and it sped away with the girl inside, too, said the social worker, who was dragged a short distance as he tried to hold on to the SUV. He was treated for minor injuries.
Rockefeller faces charges of felony custodial kidnapping, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Authorities said they would seek to extradite him to Boston this week.
Since the girl's disappearance, authorities had tried to track Rockefeller's movements. At first, they believed he was heading to a yacht or other boat on Long Island, New York, based on information from a woman described as a "personal relation" of Rockefeller's.
Boston police also acknowledged a reported sighting of the two in the Caribbean.
The girl's mother released a YouTube video earlier this week in which she pleaded with her ex-husband to return their daughter.
The couple divorced in 2007. Boss lives in London, England, where she is a partner with McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting company, the Times of London reported.
The paper reported that Boss was granted custody of her daughter and that supervision of Rockefeller's visits had been made mandatory because she was concerned Rockefeller would try to run away with the child.
Sunday was apparently Rockefeller's first supervised visit with his daughter.
Boston police said Rockefeller may not even be the suspect's real name. He has been known to use the aliases J.P. Clark Rockefeller, James Frederick, Clark Mill Rockefeller and Michael Brown, police said.
The London newspaper reported that Rockefeller told Boss he was a member of the wealthy Rockefeller oil family, descended from industrialist John D. Rockefeller and his only brother, William, who co-founded the dynasty. But the Rockefeller family issued a statement Tuesday denying any connection.
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PerryPeabodyPosted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:27 am
‘We’re doing a little stakeout’: How the manhunt ended
By Jessica Van Sack
BostonHerald.com
Sunday, August 3, 2008 - Updated 5m ago
BALTIMORE – Famous phony Clark Rockefeller was snared yesterday in the most unlikely of traps, the Herald has learned: The good citizenship of two Baltimore women and a marina manager with a knack for canny tricks.
At 3 a.m. yesterday, FBI agents arrived at Anchorage Marina, home to a decrepit 26-foot catamaran owned by a man known there as Charles “Chip” Smith.
Certified Marina Manager Jim Ruscoe Jr., 43, knew Smith as a man who had a “made-up accent” and was “living in this dream world that he owned this yacht.” In fact, his vessel was hardly seaworthy.
That, Ruscoe said, was what gave him the idea to suggest to agents that he call Rockefeller’s Baltimore hideout later in the day and tell the suspected childnapper that the catamaran was taking on water.
“We had to make it look like the boat was in distress,” Ruscoe told the Herald this morning.
Meanwhile, Lauren Gritzer, a 26-year-old researcher for John Hopkins University, got a knock on her door yesterday at about 10:30 a.m. from a friend of hers, a real estate agent who helped broker the deal for Rockefeller to move into the house — and late last week heroically tipped off the cops to Rockefeller’s whereabouts. The friend was accompanied by two FBI agents.
“They said, can we have agents come in here – we’re doing a little stakeout,’’ Gritzer told the Herald last night.
Gritzer’s Ploy Street apartment afforded a perfect vantage point from which to see the neighboring Rockefeller house. The house, a former architecture firm headquarters, is nestled within an alleyway in a discreet location. But it is hardly the anonymous bunker that many assumed the elusive Rockefeller might prefer for a life in hiding with the 7-year-old daughter, Reigh "Snooks" Storrow Mills Boss, he is charged with nabbing from Boston last Sunday.
The front of the home is almost entirely made up of two-story windows. Through them, it is easy to see the mattresses still covered in plastic wrapping, a new picnic table, the sparkling stainless steel refrigerator and a kitchen island that was half-constructed. Food, an open bottle of red wine and what appeared to be a case of champagne could be seen inside on a table.
Two agents, a woman and man, sat at her living room and kitchen windows surveying the house for hours, Gritzer said.
“They said, ‘do what you would normally do today,’ ” she said. So Gritzer went about cleaning her apartment and came in and out as the FBI used her apartment as a base.
Late in the afternoon, the call went to Rockefeller’s home telling him his boat was taking on water.
Rockefeller’s answer was prescient: “Oh, that’s not good,” he said, according to Ruscoe.
Agents posing as harbor police had gone to Rockefeller’s door with the same line. From Gritzer’s window, she could see six plainclothes agents, some in bulletproof vests, quietly swarm the apartment. Rockefeller left the building and was promptly apprehended. Then, the FBI went into the house and got the little girl.
“The whole procedure was very calm,” Gritzer said. “There was no yelling.”
A female FBI agent carried Reigh out of the front door on her hip, Gritzer said.
Ex-wife accused Rockefeller of being fraud, sources say
BostonGlobe
By Maria Cramer Globe Staff / August 2, 2008
Clark Rockefeller's former wife, Sandra Boss, accused him of lying about being a member of the famed Rockefeller family and asked for sole custody of their daughter because she believed he was a fraud, according to two sources familiar with the case.
. . . .
Rockefeller, the sources said, was a stay-at-home father who said his parents had been killed in a car crash. The judge ordered both parents to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, the sources said.
The sources said that Boss, a senior partner in London at McKinsey & Co., makes about $1.4 million a year, while Rockefeller had no apparent income or job.
Police say Rockefeller [a stay-at-home-father] was upset that he had lost custody of his daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, to Boss after they were divorced in December and he was granted only supervised visits.
When asked by Boss's lawyers for proof of his identify, Rockefeller could not provide it, according to the sources.. . . .
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PerryPeabodyPosted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:06 pm
Rockefeller was seeking new life with daughter, according to police
By Maria Cramer
Globe Staff / August 3, 2008
BALTIMORE -- When Clark Rockefeller absconded to Baltimore with his 7-year-old daughter, he was apparently looking for a new beginning in this city, a top Boston police official said today.
"It seems like he was setting up a life down there," said Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee, head of the criminal-investigation division for the Boston police. "I have no doubt that he would have been right back in high-society circles."
Lee added two more aliases -- Charles "Chip" Smith and Clark Rock -- to four already known for the mysterious 48-year-old, whose identity remains something of a mystery a day after his capture.
"His identity is still a big focus of our investigation," Lee said in a phone interview. "We will find out who he really was."
Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, 7, whom Rockefeller is accused of kidnapping last weekend, was reunited with her mother, Sandra Boss, in Baltimore last night. The reunion was witnessed by a sergeant detective from Boston, who was returning to the Hub today. Lee declined to provide the current location of Boss and the little girl, out of respect for the family, or give other details, beyond saying, "it went very well."
Rockefeller will be arraigned tomorrow in federal court in Baltimore, where officials will seek his rendition to Boston. After he returns, his federal charges will likely be dismissed, and he will instead by prosecuted by the Suffolk district attorney's office on custodial-kidnapping charges, according to Lee.
Lee said police were investigating reports that Rockefeller had also started a life in Delaware, though a tip that he had recently been spotted in Smyrna, Del., remained unverified.
Authorities captured Rockefeller yesterday using a ploy involving his 26-foot sailboat -- which turned out to be a poorly maintained day-sailer docked near Baltimore's Inner Harbor, not the supposed 72-foot yacht Rockefeller had led some to believe he kept on Long Island. Last week Boston police said they had initially believed that Rockefeller planned to flee on a 72-foot yacht with his daughter to Bermuda or Peru, but found no evidence to support this.
FBI agents lured Rockefeller out of a Baltimore apartment by making him believe his sailboat was taking on water, they said. He left the girl alone while he went to check on the boat, leading to his capture and her recovery.
Authorities had received a tip from a real estate agent about his location, according to a law enforcement official.
Rockefeller had kept his Stiletto Catamaran at Baltimore's Anchorage Marina for at least nine years, though he never seemed to sail it, said Jim Ruscoe Jr., the marina's manager, in an interview today. A few times a year, Rockefeller would come by the marina merely to check on the shabby-looking boat, he said.
"It's in such bad shape, he would come out to see if it was still floating," Ruscoe said.
After being approached by the FBI, Ruscoe said, the marina manager came up with the idea to draw Rockefeller with a call about his boat taking on water; he had needed to make a similar call last year when that happened.
Ruscoe said he called Rockefeller -- whom he knew as Chip, the registered owner of the boat -- yesterday at about 1:30 p.m., with at least one FBI agent listening in.
Rockefeller initially told Ruscoe he had checked on the boat a week earlier, and that it had been fine, Ruscoe said. But the marina manager told him that recent storms had caused it to take on water, and that he should come quickly to the marina, where Ruscoe claimed workers were trying to pump the boat dry.
"Oh, that's not a good thing," Rockefeller responded, according to Ruscoe.
Rockefeller had docked the boat, named Puma, at a 35-foot slip that he rented from the slip's owner. Those spots usually rent for about $3,000 a year, Ruscoe said.
The marina, which bills itself as Baltimore's premier yachting center, is about 3 miles from the carriage house at 618 Ploy St. where authorities converged on Rockefeller yesterday.
Today, his sailboat -- its pink and blue racing stripes cracked and faded -- remained docked at the marina, where it bobbed amid a host of sleeker-looking and better-maintained craft.
"That damn thing's been here for years," one passerby said, eyeing Rockefeller's boat.
"It's chainsaw food," said Ruscoe, who estimated the boat was worth roughly $5,000.
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paxPosted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:44 pm
Great news. Crockefeller is an asshole.
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SchmertyPosted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:49 pm
pax wrote:
Great news. Crockefeller is an asshole.
WELL SAID !!!! ITA.
Skipping along my own path.
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gwenPosted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:14 pm
I agree, pax. The mother must not be too bright herself...
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gwenPosted:
Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:42 am
Kidnap Suspect Waives Extradition
Neighbors Say They Rarely Saw Man's Catamaran Used
POSTED: 7:21 am EDT August 4, 2008
UPDATED: 10:27 am EDT August 4, 2008
BALTIMORE -- A father accused of abducting his 7-year-old daughter has waived his right to a governor's warrant and will be extradited from Baltimore to Massachusetts.
Court officials said Clark Rockefeller, 48, signed the waiver before a hearing Monday on a fugitive warrant charging him with abduction of a minor child. He faces no charges in Maryland, where he was arrested Saturday.
Baltimore District Court Associate Judge Norman Braverman set an Aug. 15 date for a status hearing. Authorities from Massachusetts have 30 days to retrieve Rockefeller from Maryland.
He will be held at the Central Booking facility in Baltimore until his return to Massachusetts.
During his court appearance, Rockefeller was dressed in a blue polo shirt and khakis and wore handcuffs and leg irons. He did not speak and was not represented in court by an attorney.
Rockefeller was taken into custody Saturday by FBI agents and Baltimore police, said FBI Special Agent Rich Wolf of the FBI's Baltimore field office.
A resident tipped off authorities that Rockefeller was living in a Baltimore apartment and had a 26-foot catamaran sailboat docked at a nearby marina, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said.
Rockefeller has been charged with felony custodial kidnapping, assault and battery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, Davis said.
Investigators said they had marina manager Jim Ruscoe call Rockefeller and tell him that his boat was taking on water.
Ruscoe told 11 News that the catamaran had taken on water before, so the call didn't seem out of the ordinary.
Neighbors said Rockefeller rarely visited the marina and never brought his daughter.
"I haven't seen anyone on or near that boat in 20 years," one neighbor said. "An engine's been changed now and then, but other than that I haven't seen anybody on it."
Rockefeller was arrested when he left the apartment, Davis said. The girl, Reigh Boss, was found unharmed inside.
"Her first words were she was very happy to see very nice people ... she was ecstatic," said Noreen Gleason, FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Boston division.
The girl lives with her mother, Sandra Boss, who works in London as a partner in a global management consulting firm.
Police said the mother collapsed after hearing that her daughter was found alive and was en route to Baltimore. She had posted a video on YouTube last week that pleaded for the return of her daughter.
"I ask you now, please, please bring Snooks back," she said in the video. "There has to be a better way for us to solve our differences than this way."
The arrest ended a suspenseful week that began in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood when police said Rockefeller attacked and fled from a social worker during a supervised visit with his daughter.
Police said they initially believed Rockefeller was trying to flee to Bermuda or Peru on a yacht docked in Long Island. But later they found he might have planted false clues to throw investigators off his trail.
Authorities said the father and daughter did not appear to have sailed to Baltimore, because the catamaran has been docked there all along.
Davis said the investigation was ongoing and authorities were still trying to determine Rockefeller's real identity and if anyone else was involved in the abduction.
Rockefeller used at least four known aliases, and there is no indication he is related to the famous family descended from Standard Oil billionaire John D. Rockefeller Sr., family members said.
