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| Kidnap Dad? 'He's a Con, He's a Fraud' - Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
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PerryPeabody
 Posted:
Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:33 pm |
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Rockefeller lawyers head to probate court to access divorce records
September 9th, 2008 | by davef |
The Docket
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s news blog
Suffolk County assistant district attorney David A. Deakin today filed a motion to gain access to the impounded divorce documents at the heart of the high-profile proceedings involving the kidnapping suspect formerly known as Clark Rockefeller — a.k.a. Christian Gerhartsreiter.
Before making a ruling, Probate & Family Court Judge E. Chouteau Merrill closed the courtroom to the public.
“The judge involved in the case closed the courtroom, and out of respect for that judicial decision, we will not discuss the results,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose office is prosecuting the high-profile parental kidnapping case.
Wark said Stephen B. Hrones, the defendant’s lawyer, and Rockefeller’s wife’s counsel, Gene D. Dahmen of Verrill Dana, were both present for the proceeding. Neither could be reached for comment.
Wark added that prosecutors expect an indictment in the criminal proceeding by the end of the month.
Rockefeller is accused of abducting his 7-year-old daughter during a supervised July 27 visit in Boston.
The police located father and daughter six days later in Baltimore and eventually charged Rockefeller with parental kidnapping.
— David E. Frank
http://tinyurl.com/5wwjnz
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1091
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:03 am |
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Very interesting video right after advertisement.
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=f4f52264-790f-4b9d-b62b-8b92af80fd5c&fg=rss&from=34
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1091
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| woebedamned
Posted:
Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:05 pm |
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delete -- too negative
Last edited by woebedamned on Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Damn it All!!!!
Joined: 15 Aug 2006
Posts: 6287
Location: pathetic joke of an American, bitter, gun clinging, God loving, racist cracker
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:44 pm |
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| woebedamned wrote: | | Perry, this man is something else. It's like peeling back the layers of an onion. This is fascinating, IMO. I am anxiously waiting to see just how this story is going to end. |
woe--So am I; it's the story that keeps on giving--surprises. I think the little video above is from a special scheduled to be on NBC or MSNBC at 9 Eastern tonight.
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat Sep 13, 2008 3:06 pm |
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Famous name, infamous life
How an imposter who called himself Clark Rockefeller fooled everyone
Dateline NBC
By Mike Taibbi, Correspondent
NBC News
Sept. 12, 2008
Clark Rockefeller: We estimated that the art would have a value of one billion, with a billion dollars.
Narrator:
Whether he's appraising the art on his walls or talking about his dog…
Clark Rockefeller: My dog, Yeats, a rather large Gordon setter, was always very much in love with Amelia, Henry Kissinger's dog.
Narrator:
Clark Rockefeller tells stories on a grand scale: about wealth and privilege and, these days, of heartbreak.
Clark Rockefeller: I had two hours to say goodbye to her.
Narrator:
But who is this man really? Are his stories -the yarns he spins to impress or win sympathy- harmless or not? Where have his lies taken him, and who's been caught up in his web of deception?
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: It was surprising how many legitimate, influential people were taken in by him.
Mike Taibbi: They bought the story.
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: Bought it hook, line and sinker.
Narrator:
Behind the closed doors of private clubs in New York and Boston, the rich and powerful share stories about him. Wondering...
Lawrence Steiger: Clark was the most wanted man in America. And it was very shocking.
Narrator:
Shocking to now think of the diminutive Rockefeller, just five foot and change, whom they knew as a gracious party guest, a champagne and sherry man.
William Quigley: Clark was always a perfect gentleman to me, he was always very respectful.
Narrator:
You'll hear him tell his story his way later on, but the version offered by some who've long known him is of a bon vivant who was also a doting husband and Mr. Mom to his 7-year old daughter Reigh, nicknamed “Snooks.”
Mike Taibbi: All of which made what happened in an upscale Boston neighborhood that July day so much more than one man's fall from grace. In seconds, the time it took to open a car door, Clark Rockefeller exited the world of privilege and wealth, sparked an international manhunt, and resurrected a decades old homicide investigation.
Sue Coffman: There's foul play of some kind, somewhere, somehow.
Narrator:
The route to that stunning conclusion involving a man friends say would never hurt a fly started on July 27th, 2008. It was a Sunday morning, and livery driver Darryl Hopkins was looking at a $3,000 payday to drive a client from Boston to Newport, Rhode Island. And not just any client: Someone he'd driven before who had a famous name. Clark Rockefeller!
Darryl Hopkins: When he first told me he was a Rockefeller - I called my daughter and I said (whispers) I picked up a Rockefeller...
Narrator:
This time, Rockefeller said, he and his daughter had a lunch date in Newport with a Senator's son. Nothing surprising about that to Hopkins, but Rockefeller did have one unusual request: When the driver picked them up he said a clingy male friend would be with them and he might try and get in the car too. Rockefeller wanted help getting rid of him.
Darryl Hopkins: And I said, “Well, he won't be getting in my car, Clark, I'll take care of that one way or another.”
Narrator:
It's just past noon. Hopkins is parked on this leafy block of old Boston, engine running. 12.45, he spies Rockefeller in his mirror carrying his daughter on his shoulders, and as expected, that “clingy friend” right next to them.
Darryl Hopkins: All of a sudden the door's opened and she's in the car and he's in the car, and closes the door and 'Go! Go! Go!'
Narrator:
Hopkins watches the man run alongside the car, holding onto the door until he loses his grip and falls to his knees with the car speeding away.
It's only later that Hopkins learns the man isn't a friend or acquaintance of his client, but a social worker... And that he's just helped Clark Rockefeller snatch his own daughter in broad daylight.
Within hours it will be a national and then international news sensation.
Jonathan Dienst: Authorities search over land and sea for a man and his daughter.
Narrator:
Boston Herald reporter Jessica Van Sack is on her way home when she gets an urgent call from her editor.
Jessica Van Sack: They said there's been a kidnapping and we think it's a big story. This man may be a Rockefeller. A Rockefeller may have kidnapped his daughter.
Narrator:
Van Sack works her sources and starts building a picture of Rockefeller. One image: A charming fixture on the cocktail circuit, a smooth-talking member of high society clubs.
Jessica Van Sack: I'm told he was very charming and that he could basically carry on a conversation about anything because he was so intelligent.
Narrator:
Van Sack learned Rockefeller had lived with his wife of 12 years, high-powered businesswoman Sandra Boss, in a two million-dollar brownstone on Boston's Beacon Hill.
Jessica Van Sack: He had the beautiful wife, rich, successful-- beautiful Sandra Boss, and this adorable daughter who he, by all accounts, doted on.
Narrator:
But in January 2007, Rockefeller lost both his marriage and any custodial rights to Reigh, a harsh divorce judgment that allowed him only three supervised visits a year with the daughter he adored.
Worse, Sandra immediately packed up and moved Reigh an ocean away - to London - and this Sunday she was back in Boston so that Rockefeller could have his first court-approved visit with his daughter in months.
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: Sandra Boss had an investigator hired to follow him on his visit with the child because she was concerned that he would kidnap the child.
Narrator:
In fact, as Boston police try to track Rockefeller down in those first hours, Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee is alarmed by Sandra Boss' description of a desperate father.
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: We were looking at this now as a person who may be a homicide/suicide situation. We didn't know what could transpire.
Narrator:
The cops scramble to track down the livery driver's black SUV - the getaway car - but Rockefeller is one step ahead of them. He's already swapped drivers, hooking up with a casual sailing friend - who drives him and his daughter to New York's Grand Central Terminal. She later tells police she had no idea he was on the run.
Mike Taibbi: And what did she say the story was he told her?
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: They were going in a 72-foot sailboat.
Mike Taibbi: And to go where?
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: I believe to Bermuda.
Mike Taibbi: And he didn't say anything to her about where the sailboat was berthed?
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: I believe he said it was someplace in Long Island.
Narrator:
The coast guard and FBI begin searching for that boat, but what a task: Coastal Long Island is home to some 20,000 sailboats in the boating season, a fair number ocean-worthy catamarans.
By now it's nearly nightfall, hope fading with the day's last light. And then a shocking revelation - police realize the man they have been looking for may not be a Rockefeller after all.
Jessica Van Sack: They don't know who this man is and they don't know what he's capable of.
William Quigley: The waiters would refer to him as, "Mr. Rockefeller," and, "How are you, Mr. Rockefeller?" and things like this. And he would walk in and he had this air about him.
Narrator:
For years Clark Rockefeller's name had graced party invitations and charity lists. Now it was plastered across an FBI Wanted Poster. The socialite had snatched his 7-year old child off a Boston street in broad daylight. But when investigators ran Rockefeller's records, they came up with a complete blank. No social security number. No driver's license. No passport. Boston Police officer Thomas Lee:
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: All the normal avenues we'd try to follow weren't panning out. As it went on, I was getting a little nervous. Because every lead was a dead end.
Narrator:
Each lead a dud, Clark Rockefeller himself seemingly a ghost. A man who'd left no paper trail for investigators to track. And, significantly, no biography even those closest to him could confirm. Now, they wondered about everything they thought they knew about him.
William Quigley: I was definitely impressed by the Rockefeller name.
Narrator:
Artist William Quigley first met Clark Rockefeller in 1998, and was convinced Clark was the real deal the minute he saw his art collection. So what if his Manhattan apartment was modest - even slightly shabby - on the walls there were paintings by Mondrian and Rothko. Just as impressive was Rockefeller's heady entertaining. At home there was never a shortage of champagne for all his guests. On the town there were nights spent at tony private clubs.
William Quigley: He was always very generous. He paid for everything we did. I don't think I ever remember paying for anything.
Narrator:
According to gallery owner, Lawrence Steigrad, Rockefeller could talk to anyone. He had that easy charm.
Lawrence Steigrad: He was the life of the party when he came to our parties.
Narrator:
...More so, it was said, than his wife, Sandra.
Lawrence Steigrad: She was very reserved. She was quiet. In any conversations, it was always Clark that took the lead.
Narrator:
Still, she was a woman of substance: Stanford- and Harvard- educated Sandra Boss was a heavy hitter in the city. The other half of an unconventional couple that seemed to work. Video
Narrator:
How Christian Gerhartsreiter became Clark Rockefeller
A look into Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter's early years.
In 1994, Clark and Sandra held a wedding ceremony on Nantucket Island and seven years later, welcomed little Reigh into their privileged world. And while Sandra climbed the corporate ladder at Mckinsey consulting firm in Boston, Clark was happy to take care of the baby a hundred miles away in their grand house in Cornish, New Hampshire.
Emily Miller: He's a Rockefeller and Cornish is a small town so, you know, a Rockefeller name is a pretty big thing for Cornish.
Narrator:
Emily Miller was Reigh's babysitter for two years. She first met father and daughter in 2005 during rehearsals for a local play. Rockefeller starring as Mars, the God of War. She says the two were inseparable.
Emily Miller: He didn't go anywhere without her by his side.
Narrator:
The 16-year old found Rockefeller impressive: A loving and attentive dad who brought his daughter to museums and art galleries and had her reading by age two. There was one odd thing though...
Emily Miller: They would dress alike. Clark would have his khaki pants, his navy blue polo and brown boat shoes and then she would have, you know, the little brown sandals and the khakis.
Narrator:
And Don McLeay, who calls himself a Rockefeller friend, did think Clark was a bit too possessive.
Don McLeay: Didn't have other children around. And I asked him once about that and "Well, she might catch something from em." Seemed awful protective.
Narrator:
He was also protective of the big house where they lived.
Bucky Demers: It seemed a little odd. But the customer is always right.
Narrator:
Bucky Demers is a car mechanic in Cornish who spent years servicing Rockefeller's fleet of vintage cars- mostly Cadillacs- so he was surprised when Rockefeller showed up 2002 with a second hand Ford.
Bucky Demers: He asked me to dress it up to make it look like a police car, so I have a friend of mine that does lettering and he made out the vinyl with the reflective blue police style vinyl and I laid it on the car.
Narrator:
Rockefeller parked it at the end of his driveway with mannequins inside.
Don McLeay: I said "What are you doing that for?" He said the government requires that we have some security, but they won’t pay for it.
Narrator:
Rockefeller had told his friend he was involved in top secret research for the Department of Defense, research he was conducting in his own home.
Narrator:
McLeay thought Rockefeller was full of it and not just about his work, but about his pedigree too.
But others gave him the benefit of the doubt. The babysitter remembering generous gifts - an iPod as a graduation present, and offers of help when she applied to colleges.
Emily Miller: He also offered to bring me down to Harvard or Yale and show me around the campus and meet with some people he knew there.
Narrator:
And Bucky the mechanic says he saw what looked like proof to him that Rockefeller was who he said he was.
Bucky Demers: I received a couple of different checks for the car work that I did for him. The checks came outta Rockefeller Plaza. I really truly wanted to believe that he was a Rockefeller.
Narrator:
The Rockefellers' divorce in early 2007 surprised nobody in Cornish- Sandra never seemed to be around.
But it was a surprise that Sandra won full custody of little Reigh, since Clark had clearly been both Dad and Mr. Mom all her life.
That's why investigators trying to track down Rockefeller after the alleged abduction were worried after talking to the towns folks up in Cornish. Worried about what he might now do to keep his little girl by his side.
Don McLeay: I says right at the moment she's not in danger but if you people get close to be closing in on him, at that point I think she might be.
Narrator:
Day two of the hunt for Clark Rockefeller - last seen with his daughter in hand, melting into the pedestrian traffic near New York's Grand Central Station. As investigators dug deeper into the case, they realized they not only didn't know where their man was, they didn't know who he was.
In fact at this point investigators had only a few leads that seemed solid enough to pursue: they knew he'd seized his daughter around midday Sunday and had reached New York City Sunday night...Witnesses had also told police he'd boasted about taking off in his 72-foot yacht with a stash of $300 thousand in gold coins.
Legal tender anywhere in the world, says Boston Herald reporter Jessica Van Sack.
Jessica Van Sack: It's the perfect currency if you are planning to escape to Europe.
Mike Taibbi: Or the Caribbean or Peru.
Jessica Van Sack: Right. He could go anywhere with his gold bullion and use it and not be traced.
Narrator:
Police quickly confirmed the gold bullion story but had no idea whether anything else Rockefeller had told his friends was true.
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: He left a lot of false trails. We weren't sure if he had a sailboat or if that was just another one of his trails he was leading us down.
Narrator:
July 31st, day three of the hunt for Rockefeller and Reigh, nicknamed Snooks. With police no closer to finding her daughter, Sandra Boss videotaped a message to her husband.
Sandra Boss: I ask you. Please, please bring Snooks back. There has to be a better way for us to solve our differences. And Reigh, honey, I love you and miss you so much and remember you're always a princess.
Narrator:
But no response...Sandra's heartfelt pleas were met with silence.
The next day though, Day 4, there was finally a break: a tip that Rockefeller had been spotted hiding out in this carriage house in Baltimore, Maryland.
Investigators learned he'd bought the house months earlier using cashiers’ checks and the alias Chip Smith. He'd also docked a battered 26 foot catamaran at the local marina. Not the kind of boat to take to sea, but just the right boat to serve as a ruse to trick Rockefeller out into the open.
FBI Agent Noreen Gleason: We wanted to make sure that we arrested Clark separate from Reigh. We wanted to get them apart. We definitely didn't want a barricade situation.
Narrator:
FBI agents told the marina manager to call the man he knew as Chip Smith and tell him his sailboat was taking on water. They listened in, and when a worried Clark Rockefeller shut his daughter inside the house with her dolls and hurried outside, he was instantly surrounded.
FBI Agent Noreen Gleason: The agent said "where are you going? And he said, I'm going to get a sandwich for my daughter. So again, another fabrication.
Mike Taibbi: First instinct, tell another lie?
FBI Agent Noreen Gleason: Tell another lie.
Narrator:
Boston police officer Thomas Lee broke the good news to Sandra Boss - her daughter was safe, unharmed. The ordeal was over.
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: And she just fainted - fainted dead away.
Mike Taibbi: Literally fainted?
Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee: Literally fainted. Afterwards she asked me, "Who is he? Did you find out who he is?"
Narrator:
Even though they had spent more than a decade as husband and wife, Sandra told police that she'd only recently learned Rockefeller was not who he said he was. That discovery had triggered the couple's bitter divorce.
Jessica Van Sack: I wonder for 12 years you know she does not notice that he doesn't have a social security number. that he refuses to fly? I think that the relationship between Sandra and Clark Rockefeller is one of the biggest mysteries in this whole story.
Narrator:
But Rockefeller wasn't giving anything up. He was booked and locked up in a Baltimore jail and never wavered...he was Clark Rockefeller, he told everyone who asked. That was his name.
Suffolk County District Attorney, Dan Conley was frustrated.
Dan Conley: I think he believes that if he repeats it long enough even to us in law enforcement, that we're gonna eventually-- say, you know, "Okay, i guess you are Clark Rockefeller." Well, we don't think anything of the kind is true.
Narrator:
The next day he waived extradition and was flown back to Boston. On the plane, he greeted reporters and other passengers with a big smile, as though they were his guests.
And though he was arraigned as Clark Rockefeller in a Boston courtroom on charges of parental abduction and two counts of assault and battery he was really an unknown. One of the prosecutors called him... a man without a name.
Assistant District Attorney David Deakin: He is, in fact, your honor, and i know this sounds dramatic but i believe it's simply true, he's a "mystery man." He's a cipher. We simply don't know who this man is before you.
Narrator:
Perhaps it is fitting that a wineglass was the breakthrough clue to proving Rockefeller's actual identity. It was found at a friend's house and when FBI analysts dusted it for prints they got a match. From that point on investigators knew for sure that not only was he not a Rockefeller, he wasn't even an American.
FBI presser: The individual's true name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter. He was born in 1961 in what was then west Germany.
Narrator:
Gerhartsreiter? Not so fast, said the suspect's attorney.
Defense attorney, Stephen Hrones: He says Rockefeller is the name. His real name.
Narrator:
In fact the man who still called himself Clark Rockefeller said he only remembered bits and pieces of his childhood and none of those memories involved Germany.
Defense attorney, Stephen Hrones: A lot of these things he can't absolutely deny them. He just doesn't remember them. He remembers his name as Rockefeller.
Narrator:
But they remember him differently here in this rural town in the Bavarian region of Germany. In fact Christian Gerhartsreiter is difficult to forget.
Luise Huber: Christian always wanted to be someone else.
Narrator:
Eighty-nine-year old Luise Huber is a long-time friend of the Gerhartsreiter family. She owns a little store in Siegsdorf, the town where Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter was born in 1961 to a seamstress and a house painter. It's a friendly, comfortable place, but apparently he didn't think so.
Narrator:
Huber remembers Gerhartsreiter as a child always thinking he was better than everyone else. He picked fights with his friends, she said...berating one friend in her own store.
Luise Huber: (in German) All of a sudden Christian shouted at him, "Stay out, you dog!"
Narrator:
At eighteen, Gerhartsreiter told his family he was leaving his stifling little hometown to reinvent himself in America. His mother told her friends including Luise Huber that she was very proud of him.
Luise Huber: (in German) There is nothing Christian likes more than being away from here.
Narrator:
He had to “be away” to become Clark Rockefeller and to inhabit Clark Rockefeller's world. But that would be years and many name changes later. His improbable journey just beginning.
Edward Savio: He came with these interesting, the white sunglasses, his clothes were much tighter.
Narrator:
In the late 1970s, for a period of several months, Ed Savio studied Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter across his breakfast table. The German house guest made quite an impression on the then 16 year old.
Mike Taibbi: And how did he sound?
Edward Savio: It was very like, "Ed, how are you, Ed?” You know pass me the bread.
[The accent Savio was affecting was like Hans, the party planner, in Steve Martin's Father of the Bride .]
Mike Taibbi: German accent or affected something else?
Edward Savio: He was trying to do his version of what he thought an Americanized accent was.
Narrator:
Connecticut was the first stop in Gerhartsreiter's American journey, a journey that would end with him assuming the name Clark Rockefeller. He had come to stay with the Savio family after posting an ad in the local Connecticut paper and was attending the same high school as the 16-year old Ed.
And Chris, as he now asked to be called, he didn't like using his full name, Christian Gerhartsreiter, was far from the perfect house guest. He criticized the food, criticized the house. He refused to do his own laundry.
Edward Savio: "Because that's what, you know, other people did. You know, he didn't do laundry..."
Narrator:
He told the Savios he was the son of a wealthy industrialist. Sometimes he hinted he was European royalty, implying that living with the Savios was really kind of slumming it.
Savio says Chris was just as arrogant at school - full of boasts and outsize stories about his childhood.
Edward Savio: I think he would be talking, talking, talking, and he would sense that moment when maybe he'd lost them. He didn't care that you thought he was full of it but he watched it and said ok next time don't do that.
Narrator:
It seemed to the young Savio that Chris was practicing how to lie. And that's not all. Savio says the German student changed his hairstyle and the way he dressed, measuring the effects. In retrospect, Savio thinks he was witnessing a future con-man evolve before his very eyes.
Mike Taibbi: Whatever he was gonna do in this country, he'd started in your household.
Edward Savio: Yeah.
Mike Taibbi: In your house.
Edward Savio: Yeah, it's sort of like seeing the caterpillar you know and you see them start to build the cocoon.
Narrator:
Seven months after his arrival at the Savio house, Chris Gerhartsreiter had worn out everyone's patience. He was told he had to leave.
Edward Savio: He was a bit stunned. On the one hand, he was like "OK, I'm ready for something better." On the other hand, I really believe it was surprising that we didn't love him.
Richie Riddle: He'd stare a hole right through you. And it was unnerving. And it made you uncomfortable.
Narrator:
His next known American contact, Richie Riddle, who met Christian Gerhartsreiter in 1979 when they were both undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin. The man who would later become known as the gregarious and charming Clark Rockefeller, was nothing of the sort.
Richie Riddle: Back then he really lacked social skills. He didn't converse well. He was a difficult person to get to know.
Other students gossiped about his background because of his accent and his weird clothes. Someone said his mother was an ambassador. Someone else said his father was a spy. Did Gerhartsreiter enjoy the mystery? The taste of possibility?
Richie Riddle: I almost felt like he was maybe in the Witness Protection Program or something, because he was so secretive about his life-- that it actually almost drew more attention to him.
But no one could overlook his temper tantrums. Riddle says Gerhartsreiter pitched a fit when he saw his German home address in the student directory.
Richie Riddle: It was the sort of outburst that you look at and you think, "This is a little over the top." And you walk away from it going "Steer clear of that guy."
Narrator:
But it was hard for Riddle to steer completely clear of him. Friends warned Riddle that Gerhartsreiter had a crush on her. When he refused to leave a party she was hosting, a burly resident advisor had to manhandle him back to his room.
Richie Riddle: And that set him off. He didn't like to be touched. He didn't like to be told what to do. And he didn't have control of the situation anymore. So, his temper flared. You know, "Who are you? Get your hands off of me! do you know who i am?"
Narrator:
She didn't have to worry much longer. A few months later, Gerhartsreiter was gone. A dropout who'd just disappeared.
But Christian did stay in touch with the Savios.
From time to time he'd call someone in the family with an update on his exciting life. In a 1981 phone call, the news was that he was in Wisconsin and about to tie the knot.
Edward Savio: We knew that he was somehow dating somebody and was gonna maybe marry somebody. [ Marriage license with Amy Janine Jersild is shown.]
Mike Taibbi: To get a green card?
Edward Savio: What i know is that there wasn't a lot of passion that was talked about you now?
Narrator:
Savio's hunch was on the money. Gerhartreiter dumped his bride just days after the wedding... and left Wisconsin altogether.
His next stop? Chris, as he now liked to be called, moved here to California. A new state meant new opportunities and a new identity. Now when he knocked on the doors of California high society, business card in hand, he was English lord Christopher Chichester, 13th baronet.
13th Baronet? In fact, Christopher Chichester was a name that eventually would become associated with a sinister disappearance.
Jessica Van Sack: "That's the strange thing. It's-- it's-- it makes you wonder what we're going to learn about this man..."
Carol Campbell: He was very proper, with his little clipped British accent.
Narrator:
It was 1983 and the thirteenth baronet of Chichester was new to San Marino, an affluent Pasadena suburb. The newcomer was a film buff trying to make his way in Hollywood but he never seemed lonely. He was a hit at the Rotary Club and the local church.
Carol Campbell: He just fit right into any circle he wanted to.
Narrator:
Chichester asked Carol Campbell out on a date. But as he drove her around town in his beat up Datsun, running errands, he didn't impress her one bit
Carol Campbell: I came home and said, "Mom, he's lying. it can't be true. He's creepy.
Narrator:
Chris Chichester was none other than German immigrant Christian Gerhartsreiter.
A man determined to make a name for himself in America. He'd made quite an impression at a Connecticut high school and then dropped out of college in Wisconsin. California was the latest stop in his American adventure and Chichester his latest incarnation.
Sue Coffman: She didn't like him, and didn't talk to him.
Narrator:
Sue Coffman never met Chris Chichester but her best friend, Linda Sohus, knew him well. He was renting the guest-house behind the home Linda shared with her husband John
Sue Coffman: She said something about the guy that lived there was kind of creepy.
Narrator:
In 1985, Sue says her friend's career as a painter was just taking off. Flush with money for once, Linda and her husband bought a truck.
Sue Coffman: They were showing it off, 'cause they'd just bought it. And-- they were making payments on it. And they were making just enough money to be able to like, Look, we've got a decent truck."
Narrator:
One night Sue and Linda sat in the truck for hours, making plans as good friends will.
Sue Coffman: That was the last time i saw my best friend. Oh, here I go. (cries)
Narrator:
In February, Linda called Sue to tell her she was heading out of town for a few weeks. Her husband, John, had a job interview in New York.
Sue Coffman: That was the last time I talked to her ever. I never heard from Linda again. Just disappears off the face of the earth forever as far as I could tell.
Narrator:
She did receive a postcard a few months later with a French postmark, signed Linda. But the handwriting didn't seem quite right.
Sue Coffman: And I just knew in my heart some bad stuff had happened to her somehow.
Narrator:
More anxious with each passing day, Sue contacted Linda's sister who, with both Linda and John now missing, was worried enough to contact police and file a missing person's report.
In the meantime, Chris Chichester continued to live in the Sohus guest-house until one day someone noticed that a section of the lawn had been dug up. A plumbing problem, he explained. And shortly thereafter, the Sohuses now missing for months, Chris Chichester - Christian Gerhartsreiter, of course -disappeared again.
This time he went way under the radar, ending all contact with anyone who'd known him, including his family back in Germany.
Jessica Van Sack: That's when-- that's when he really starts to become this elusive person with no paper trail-- at all.
Mike Taibbi: It's logical to assume that something in his life changed at that point.
Jessica Van Sack: Right.
Narrator:
When he next surfaced in the late 1980s, Christian Gerhartsreiter was calling himself Christopher Crowe. And he was working on Wall Street as a bond trader.
Mike Taibbi: A reputable established bond trading house hires this guy.
Jessica Van Sack: It's-- it's incredible that--
Mike Taibbi: And moves him up the ladder.
Jessica Van Sack: Yeah, yeah. He was able to fool these people like so many others. You know, he could talk the talk.
Richard Barnett: He claimed to be a descendent of lord Mountbatten.
Narrator:
Richard Barnett was hired by Christopher Crowe to work at the bond trading firm Nikko Industries in 1987. But he says the German impostor was barely competent and quickly became an in-house joke.
Richard Barnett: It was very, very apparent that Mr. Crowe didn't know anything about the industry.
Narrator:
Crowe was eventually fired from his job at Nikko. How he left his next job became fodder for Wall Street gossip
Richard Barnett: He was there all of two days. and at which point, he went into the managing director's office and told him that his parents were missing in Afghanistan. He walked out and wasn't seen again.
Narrator:
The next day, two Connecticut state troopers and an FBI agent came looking for Crowe. He had been reported to police for trying to sell a truck that didn't belong to him. In fact, the records showed it belonged to that missing couple in California, the Sohuses.
But by the time police tracked him down, Crowe had vanished again.
And that's where the investigation stalled for six years, until May 1994, when a clue surfaced back in San Marino, California about what might have happened to John and Linda Sohus. A clue that turned a missing persons case into a possible homicide inquiry.
KNBC footage: The body was found buried three and a half feet down behind the home in San Marino...
Workers installing a pool in the backyard of the old Sohus home stumbled on three plastic bags filled with the remains of a man. Police couldn't positively identify the body, but Sue Coffman was sure it was her best friend's husband, John.
Coffman: The guy told me that what was left of the remains was clothed in jeans and a plaid shirt. And I said, "That's exactly what john wore, like almost all the time."
Narrator:
Now investigators wanted to interview Chris Chichester. Not about a stolen truck but about a possible homicide. They never did find him though, until he showed up in the system 14 years later on an abduction charge under a totally different name: Clark Rockefeller.
Clark, who are you really?
After his July arrest for abducting his daughter, Christian Gerhartsreiter swapped his tony post-divorce bachelor pad for a 12x12 foot jail cell. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
By now, police had connected the dots. They'd figured out through fingerprint analysis that Gerharstreiter was also Christopher Crowe and Christopher Chichester, the man wanted for questioning in relation to the Sohus cold-case.
Steve Whitmore, Spokesperson, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office: He's a person of interest. Not a suspect. Just somebody we were hoping to speak to to help try to clear up the disappearance of this couple.
Narrator:
Just two weeks ago, forensic technicians dug up the Sohus backyard again, looking for any scraps of evidence.
And all the people he deceived are asking themselves: Was he involved in a terrible crime?
Carol Campbell: Knowing what I know now, I think Christopher Chichester was capable of killing the sohuses.
Quigley: Deep down in my heart, like somewhere, I hope that Clark's innocent.
Narrator:
Gerharstreiter has refused to talk to investigators, but he did talk to NBC's Natalie Morales, his defense attorney at his side. It was an all-encompassing, but rather strange interview that started with a handshake for everyone in the room and ended with Scottish poetry.
Clark Rockefeller: Fair fa' your honest, Sonsie face. Great chieftain o' the puddin-race. Video
Narrator:
How do you greet a man who has used at least ten different aliases? The prison guards call him Clark Rockefeller. The now-amended criminal complaint calls him Christian Gerhartsreiter.
Natalie Morales: In truth, I--Ii'm not sure what to call you. Because the FBI has identified you as Christian Gerhartsreiter , a German national who came to this country in the late 1970s, as an exchange student.
Steven Hrones: He doesn't remember anything about that early life.
Natalie Morales: Do you not remember?
Clark Rockefeller: I have to go by what Mr. Hrones is telling you.
Natalie Morales: Do you speak German?
Clark Rockefeller: I speak many languages.
Natalie Morales: Can you speak a little German--
Steven Hrones: Well, his position is-- basically, he's not denying that he might be this person. He just doesn't remember. He's got a block there.
Narrator:
In fact, Gerhartsreiter says the bits and pieces he remembers about his childhood convince him he grew up in New York, not Germany. His improbable memories suggest an all-American childhood. Going to Mt Rushmore in an old woody station wagon, picking strawberries in Oregon.
Natalie Morales: Are you a Rockefeller?
Clark Rockefeller: I really couldn't tell you. Perhaps at some point we can do a DNA test to really find out.
Natalie Morales: Did you make that up?
Clark Rockefeller: Did I make what up?
Natalie Morales: The-- the Rockefeller name?
Clark Rockefeller: It was given to me by-- the one person to whom I've always looked up, the one person whom I've known since I was small.
Natalie Morales: And who's that person?
Clark Rockefeller: I-- at this point, i think-- Mr. Hrones here does not want me to mention that particular name.
Natalie Morales: And you never told anyone outright that you are a Rockefeller?
Clark Rockefeller: I don't think so. I always left it very ambiguous.
Narrator:
Gerhartsreiter concedes that that ambiguity may have persuaded some friends who wanted to believe he was an actual descendant of John D. Rockefeller. But is he completely to blame? His wife was the breadwinner in their marriage and on closer inspection, those fancy dinner parties were mostly rather modest affairs. The vintage cars all second-hand. And the art?
Natalie Morales: Are they real?
Clark Rockefeller: They are derivatives. They are derivations, perhaps is, probably is a better word for them.
Natalie Morales: They had to be very good--
Clark Rockefeller: They are--
Natalie Morales: --Derivations.
Clark Rockefeller: --Unbelievably extraordinary paintings.
Narrator:
He says the one person who knew the absolute truth, that he wasn't a real Rockefeller, was his wife. But he says she enjoyed the ambiguity of his name, and the reality of its power, as much as he did.
Clark Rockefeller: She usually did so-- in a very understated way, calling attention by-- calling special attention to it by keeping it extra quiet. Sort of the-- quote, "Psst, she's married to a rockefeller," end quote, kind of-- kind of way.
Stephen Hrones: It's like saying you went to Harvard. It opens doors.
Natalie Morales: uh-huh (affirm). So you believe that was something for her. It was socially-- something that elevated her into circles.
Clark Rockefeller: Well, she is the youngest-- woman ever to be elected to director of Mckinsey and company.
Narrator:
Whether that's true or not, Gerhartsreiter insists, unlike his wife, he was discreet with the Rockefeller name, using aliases when it seemed the thing to do.
Natalie Morales: You did create names for yourself. You assumed different identities?
Clark Rockefeller: Yes. Yes. But for specific purposes. And much like--
Natalie Morales: So much so--
Clark Rockefeller: Much like a writer would take a pen name.
Narrator:
Gerhartsreiter says Christopher Chichester was one of those 'pen names.' Something that sounded more suitable, he said, for a wannabe director trying to break into Hollywood. But while he doesn't deny living in the Sohus guest-house as Christopher Chichester, he does deny being involved in the couple's disappearance.
Natalie Morales: The FBI said you are a person of interest linked to--
Steven Hrones: But-- that (unintel)'s not gonna be allowed to talk anymore.
Natalie Morales: Well, then, perhaps, can you respond to--
Steven Hrones: But I'll talk about that for a minute.
Natalie Morales: Sure.
Steven Hrones: They can't even identify the body. We don't even know that the-- bones that were dug up were the body of the missing person. He did not commit any murder. He's adamant about that. And they don't have any--
Natalie Morales: Did you kill John and Linda Sohus?
Clark Rockefeller: My entire life, I've always been a pacifist. I am a Quaker and I believe in non-violence. And I can fairly certainly say that I have never hurt anyone.
Narrator:
In fact, Gerhartsreiter says he's the one who's been hurt. He blames his wife for his divorce.
Natalie Morales: What happened in your marriage?
Clark Rockefeller: Well-- I-- believe Mckinsey happened in my marriage. And--
Natalie Morales: The job got in the way--
Clark Rockefeller: The job-- got in the way in-- in a major, major, major-- way. It was a-- severe, sincere problem.
Narrator:
Gerhartsreiter claims Sandra's crazy work schedule also got in the way of her relationship with Snooks. He describes Sandra as an absent mother. When she won full custody, he says it was devastating not just for him.
Clark Rockefeller: --It was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. Worst of all, the separation happened four days before Christmas.
Natalie Morales: How did you tell your daughter at the time, what was happening to her?
Clark Rockefeller: Well, I told her that she has to leave. That she's going far away, and that-- I will see her at some point again in the future. And that was a very difficult thing to stay. I had two hours to say good-bye to her, four days before Christmas. I'm sorry. (sniffing)
Narrator:
Sandra Boss declined to talk to us on camera but she did say in a written statement that we should be skeptical of anything Gerhartsreiter told us given his "history of deceitful behavior."
And it should be noted that a judge gave her full custody of little Reigh...and only supervised visits to the father three times a year.
Which brings us back to the alleged abduction. Gerharstreiter characterizes his time on the run with Snooks as an extended father daughter bonding session.
Clark Rockefeller: All I can say now is that I had six wonderful, wonderful days with my daughter. And-- I don't regret having spent those six days with her.
Natalie Morales: Did you plan to take her away, for good? Or was it just for a while?
Clark Rockefeller: Not really. Not really.
Natalie Morales: Did you intend to have her go back to her mother in London?
Clark Rockefeller: I don't really know. I hadn't really thought about it. Just being together with her was almost as if I-- it was almost like a, it was almost like a drug.
Natalie Morales: If you loved her so much, why separate her from her mother? Why take her away? For those days that you had her?
Clark Rockefeller: She had been taken away from me for eight months. Eight very cruel months.
Natalie Morales: So, you admit you took your daughter away from her mother?
Clark Rockefeller: No.
Narrator:
But that is something a jury will have to decide. As Gerhartsreiter sits in jail thinking about those six days with his daughter--glorious days, he says--he thinks of what he might say to her now.
Clark Rockefeller: I'd like to tell her that-- she should wish that the two of us to be together. And that she should hope for the two of us together. Wishing and hoping. And that's the best I can tell her at the moment.
Narrator:
But wishing and hoping might not be enough for a man who, after a lifetime of deception was finally brought down by the one true thing in his life - his love for the daughter he may not see for a long time to come.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26664102/
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Posts: 1091
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2008 9:57 am |
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http://tinyurl.com/52bk38
the.boston.channel
unedited video of arraignment August 6; 38 minutes.
"He's a mystery man; he's a cipher."
Prosecutor states that defendant was charged with filing marriage certificate and did not (along with a lot of other things).
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Posts: 1091
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:38 am |
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Grand jury indicts 'Clark Rockefeller' on kidnapping charges
CNN
updated 12:04 a.m. EDT, Sat September 27, 2008
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A German who calls himself Clark Rockefeller has been indicted on kidnapping charges for the alleged snatching of his 7-year-old daughter from a Boston street during a supervised visit in July.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who calls himself Clark Rockefeller, is accused of kidnapping his young daughter.
Investigators say Rockefeller is really Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter and has been living under aliases since coming to the United States in 1978.
He was arrested last month in Baltimore, where authorities said he fled with his daughter, hoping to start a new life after losing custody to his ex-wife. The girl was unharmed.
Authorities have since identified Gerhartsreiter as a "person of interest" in the 1985 disappearance of a California couple.
He was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury Friday on charges of parental kidnapping, assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and giving a false name to police.
The indictment moves the case from Boston Municipal Court to Suffolk Superior Court. Gerhartsreiter is to be arraigned on the charges Monday.
Prosecutors allege in the assault charges that a male social worker monitoring a father-daughter visit was shoved by Gerhartsreiter and suffered minor injuries when he tried to grab the moving getaway car. The dangerous-weapon count is the most serious, with a maximum prison term of 10 years.
Defense attorney Stephen Hrones said the indictments "reflect the same weaknesses as the original charges." Hrones said he will enter pleas of not guilty on Monday, and likely will seek bail for his client.
He denied the assault charges, saying Gerhartsreiter wasn't driving and his driver wasn't attempting to hurt anyone. Hrones also said that there is no evidence of a marriage certificate between his client and the girl's mother, so he can't be criminally prosecuted for violating their custody agreement.
Hrones said the charge of giving a false name is "groundless" since his client was not attempting to mislead police when he gave the name he had been using for several years.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/26/rockfeller.indicted.ap/index.html
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:40 am |
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State: Clark Rockefeller’s ex alleged abuse
bostonherald.com
By Laurel J. Sweet
September 30, 2008
Sandra Lynne Boss, whose curious marriage to con artist Clark Rockefeller became the punchline to his joke of a life, may have been his punching bag, as well.
The all-American socialite divorced Rockefeller - in truth, German national Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 47 - last December, sending him packing with an $800,000 settlement and the understanding he could have supervised visits with their 7-year-old daughter Reigh “Snooks” Boss three times a year.
But for the first time yesterday, assistant Suffolk District Attorney David Deakin revealed in court that Boss, 41, tried to end their 13-year union as early as 1999, but was “wooed back” by her husband and impregnated with their only child.
Only after Boss tired of his “emotional and occasional physical abuse” did she leave him - and Beacon Hill - for good. She and Reigh now live in London.
Deakin’s bomb toss was significant. The outwardly nerdy Rockefeller, since his arrest two months ago, has been identified as a person of interest in the unsolved 1985 disappearance of San Marino, Calif., newlyweds John and Linda Sohus, his former landlords.
What are believed to be John Sohus’ remains were unearthed in 1994 during excavation for a swimming pool from the property the three once shared.
Rockefeller, nattily attired in a blue suit and red tie, pleaded not guilty yesterday to grand jury indictments stemming from his daughter’s now internationally infamous July 27 kidnapping from the Back Bay and was ordered held on an astounding $50 million cash bail by Suffolk Superior Court Magistrate Gary D. Wilson.
Rockefeller’s defense attorney Stephen Hrones will argue for a reduction at a hearing Thursday, but Wilson assured him, “It’s not a bail beyond comprehension” when compared to the annual salaries some Wall Street suits pull in.
Briefly landing work on Wall Street was one of Rockefeller’s more industrious scams.
The impostor who tried to pass himself off as a descendant of America’s wealthiest family may not be in the poor house too much longer. Deakin said $270,000 worth of gold coins and $12,000 authorities seized from Rockefeller when they tracked the fugitive father to a $427,000 home he’d paid cash for in Baltimore will likely be returned to him soon because investigators are “unable to link them to any criminal activity.”
Rockefeller is scheduled to face trial March 23, 2009.
4k9qr3
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat Oct 04, 2008 8:00 pm |
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[If we had a "rumor" thread, that's where I'd put this (except for the part about bail being revoked):]
‘Sam’ Clark Rockefeller will likely get the boot from U.S.
By Laurel J. Sweet
BostonHerald
Friday, October 3, 2008 - Updated 1d 21h ago
Pipsqueak pretender Clark Rockefeller - whose life of lies included stealing the Social Security number of New York serial killer David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz - may get the boot back to Bavaria.
In a double whammy for the identity-shuffling German, whose true name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, Rockefeller’s $50 million cash bail was revoked and Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David Deakin said it’s “overwhelmingly likely” his green card will be, too, once the kidnapping charge against him is resolved.
Rockefeller, 47, obtained a green card in 1981 by marrying a Wisconsin woman he promptly ditched.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Paula Grenier said there is not a detainer on Rockefeller, but, “ICE is aware of the case and continuing to investigate.”
Defense attorney Stephen Hrones was before Suffolk Superior Court Judge D. Lloyd MacDonald yesterday to propose swapping Rockefeller’s bail for house arrest on a GPS anklet. The strategy backfired when MacDonald, citing Rockefeller’s “ingenious capacity to transform himself,” rescinded bail entirely, saying no amount of money would keep Rockefeller from running, and GPS only works “as long as the person who is wearing the device does not devise a means of overcoming it.”
Deakin alleged Rockefeller stole the Social Security number of Berkowitz, 55, who killed six people between 1976 and 1977 on what he claimed were the orders of a dog. Rockefeller is a person of interest in the 1985 disappearance of a California couple.
Rockefeller is accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter Reigh “Snooks” Storrow Mills Boss from his second marriage while on a supervised visit in the Back Bay July 27. When law enforcement captured the fugitive father in Baltimore and asked if he’d intended to let the girl’s frantic mother know she was OK, Deakin said Rockefeller replied, “I hadn’t given that any thought.”
http://tinyurl.com/4cx9u2
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sun Oct 19, 2008 3:12 pm |
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Fritzl could be sent to mental institution
telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 4:47PM BST 15 Oct 2008
Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar dungeon for 24 years and fathered seven children by her, could be put in a mental institution where he would receive psychiatric care and therapy instead of going to prison. Prosecutors are likely to demand that Fritzl be confined to a prison for the criminally insane. Earlier this week, Fritzl, 73, was declared clinically sane and fit for trial by a forensic psychiatrist, who, however, also diagnosed a "serious personality disorder".
Austrian prosecutors are now likely to use that diagnosis to demand that he be confined to a prison for the criminally insane, which is a mixture between a hospital and a penal institution, according to the Austrian broadsheet Die Presse.
The newspaper claims the move comes as a bid on behalf of prosecutors to ensure that Fritzl would never be allowed back into society again, as the maximum sentence he is likely to face at the trial is up to 15 years in prison for charges of rape, incest, incarceration and coercion.
Criminally insane offenders can only be released if an expert psychiatrist hired by a court confirms that they are no longer a threat to society, which, prosecutors believe, is not likely to take place in Fritzl's case.
One of the children born by his daughter Elisabeth, 42, died shortly after birth and Fritzl hurled his body in an incinerator. He is therefore also facing charges for manslaughter for the baby that died, which would however be difficult to prove in court due to lack of evidence as the baby died in 1996.
Prosecutors are also exploring the possibility of charging Fritzl with slavery under a Penal Law paragraph that has never been used before.
Austrian authorities would not comment on the reports, but a spokesman for the prosecutors confirmed that they could demand from the court to commit Fritzl to an asylum for the criminally insane, in addition to his prison sentence.
That means Fritzl would be sentenced in court and a judge would then have to decide whether to put him in prison or commit him to a mental institution for criminal offenders.
Alternatively, Fritzl could be also ordered to receive psychiatric care and therapy in a prison while serving his sentence.
http://tinyurl.com/43p24f
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:44 pm |
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A Most Proper Con
By Francis Storrs
For decades, the man who called himself Clark Rockefeller searched for a place where he could lead the life he always felt he deserved. The exclusive story of how he finally found it—at least for a few idyllic months—right here on Beacon Hill.
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Illustration by Martin Hargreaves.
Beacon Hill reveals itself best in the cold of autumn. The ivy clinging to antique townhouses dies back, uncovering the two-century-old brick beneath. The wind whips leaves up the narrow streets and across sidewalks where long-gone Alcotts, Appletons, and Cabots once strolled. But when Clark Rockefeller arrived to stroll those same sidewalks, taking up residence on Pinckney Street in September 2006, he came with something to hide.
Rockefeller was met by welcoming neighbors, and found it easy to make friends. He always had. On the evening of November 30, he and his wife, Sandra Boss, headed across the Public Garden to the Back Bay mansion of philanthropist Jane Roy. The occasion was a fundraiser to benefit the Mount, the former Lenox home of Edith Wharton that now serves as a museum. Roy would host a cocktail reception before guests moved a few doors down the street for dinner at the Algonquin Club. The event promised to be grand, but in that understated way still typical of Boston. The guests, perhaps befitting their ingrained Puritanical sensibilities, took their drinks secure in the knowledge that they'd be afforded the opportunity to repent for them later with their checkbooks.
Rockefeller's introduction to this scene, like many advantages handed to him in the preceding years, was owed to his wife's achievements. The managing partner in the Boston office of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, she had just been appointed a trustee of the Mount, which was then struggling under several million dollars' worth of debt. Museum officials hoped her business experience would help them avoid foreclosure.
The Mount has for years been supported by some of Boston's most distinguished residents, people like Amos and Barbara Hostetter, and Lillie Johnson, the wife of Fidelity chair Ned Johnson. But this party hosted more than merely deep-pocketed donors. Indeed, for Rockefeller, the fundraiser would have been an enticing combination of literary lights and high-status patrons of the arts. In addition to the former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, guests included authors like Mark Bowden, who wrote Black Hawk Down, and Cambridge's Claire Messud, whose The Emperor's Children had just spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. "It was quite a fashionable event," says Jonathan Harr, author of A Civil Action. "All the cream of Boston society was there."
The benefit was in full swing by the time Boss and Rockefeller climbed the steps to Roy's front door. Inside, the omnipresent society photographer Bill Brett was navigating the room, shooting photos that would appear in the Globe. Although he didn't recognize Rockefeller and Boss as they entered, Brett was drawn to how they looked—she stunning in an evening dress, he wearing a flashy dinner jacket—so he approached them with his camera. It took just a moment for Rockefeller to notice the photographer, even less time for his expression to change from startled to angry. "You will not take my picture," he hissed, and disappeared into the crowd.
The exchange was an odd one, if not rare for Rockefeller, whose various affectations—a hard-to-place accent, a fabricated educational pedigree, a borrowed last name—added up to an image that practically begged people to notice him. Yet once they did, he would flee from their attention. As if once they began asking questions, he would realize that he shouldn't be courting attention at all.
After spending years bouncing across the country, what Rockefeller had finally found on Beacon Hill that fall must have been a relief. It was a place where people were impressed by his name, though not terribly surprised by it. More than that, it was filled with people ready to believe the sorts of stories they presumed a Rockefeller would tell. And so it was that Clark Rockefeller, who was created in Manhattan, became in Boston the type of man he always thought he deserved to be.
On July 27, 2008, the Boston police issued an Amber Alert announcing that a man named Clark Rockefeller had snatched his seven-year-old daughter from a Back Bay street. It took at least a half-dozen state and federal agencies a full 19 days to determine that he was, in fact, a German citizen named Christian Karl Gerhartstreiter. It had taken Gerhartstreiter half his life to craft the identity that would ultimately earn him infamy. (Through his lawyer, Rockefeller declined to comment for this story, as did Boss, through a spokesperson.)
As a boy in Germany, Gerhartstreiter loved pretending he was someone else, someone special. In 1978, at age 17, he arrived in suburban Connecticut, but soon moved to Wisconsin, staying just long enough to marry for a green card (then quickly divorce). He then took the name Christopher Chichester and relocated to a suburb of Los Angeles, where he hoped to become an actor. He had to abandon that plan in 1985, around the time police started asking questions about the disappearance of his landlords, but soon resurfaced in Greenwich, Connecticut, driving the landlords' truck and calling himself Christopher Crowe. There, he talked his way into the first of a series of jobs on Wall Street—fired from one in 1989, he immediately turned up at another, only to quit abruptly. The next day, police arrived at his office looking for that missing truck. Over two decades, Gerhartstreiter never outgrew his childish faith in the possibilities of reinvention. Each failed persona inspired a more audacious follow-up. The out-of-work actor tried his hand as a banking king. And when that didn't work, he decided he'd become a Rockefeller.
At first, it was easy. He'd always understood how to network. Crisscrossing the country, he'd made a habit of joining chambers of commerce, churches, and private social clubs. After adopting the Clark Rockefeller name, he started attending St. Thomas Church in Manhattan, a congregation that at the time included the socialite Brooke Astor. It was at the church that Rockefeller met a young publishing assistant named Julia Boss, later inviting her to his apartment for a dinner party. The soiree, thrown in 1993, was based on the board game Clue; Rockefeller dressed the part of Professor Plum, a bow tie–wearing academic with a mysterious past. Julia brought along her twin sister, Sandra, who was working toward her M.B.A. at Harvard and who acted out the role of the game's femme fatale, Miss Scarlet. By the time the evening's mystery had been solved, Rockefeller realized he was in love.
As he and Sandra Boss began dating, Rockefeller revealed himself by layering detail upon detail. He said his father was a Rockefeller heir who had lost his share of the family fortune in some nebulous lawsuit with the Department of Defense. He claimed that a boyhood accident had left him mute for a decade—an adversity he was proud to have overcome to earn acceptance to Yale at the age of 14. He said his parents died in a car accident while coming to visit him at school, but couldn't recall the specifics. A part of Boss must have believed the stories; whatever part was left over must have wanted to.
Rockefeller proposed to Boss in 1994 while they were vacationing in Isleboro, Maine. He apparently preferred that no mention of the wedding, a Quaker service on Nantucket, be made in the papers. He also didn't file a marriage license, ensuring the union would remain as invisible in the official record as it was on the society pages.
After several years in New York, Rockefeller told Boss they needed to move into the woods of New England. He was vague about why, but adamant that they had to go immediately. They settled in Cornish, New Hampshire, a town of just under 1,800 residents where author J. D. Salinger had gone to disappear more than a half-century earlier. Passersby were curious about the sign the couple hung at the end of their driveway announcing their estate's name, "Doveridge." They were downright baffled by an old Ford marked with "Doveridge Security" that Rockefeller had parked there to ward off snoops.
Rockefeller's life changed forever when, a year after moving to Cornish, Boss gave birth to a daughter they named Reigh (the couple would call her by a nickname, Snooks). With Boss still working in New York, childcare fell to Rockefeller. He took on the duty in a way that suggested he was crafting the perfect companion. He had Reigh reading him the newspaper by age two and a half, and the journal Nature by three. Proud to show off her accomplishments, he could also become oddly defensive. Once in a coffee shop, when Reigh was spelling all the words she could, a friend of Rockefeller's asked her to try spelling one in French. Rockefeller bristled. "That's not fair," he snapped.
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When Rockefeller learned a Cornish museum was putting on a play, he couldn't keep himself from auditioning. He listed the starring roles he said he'd played in high school, and noted that Reigh could speak fluent French, if there was a role that called for it. Director Alan Haehnel thought these were strange bits of braggadocio for a community production, yet museum officials had asked him to treat the family with the respect the Rockefeller name warranted. Haehnel cast both Rockefeller and his daughter.
The play was a rare social activity for the otherwise sheltered Reigh. Rockefeller had chosen not to enroll her in preschool, and was now dressing her in khakis and polo shirts that matched his own. His unorthodox parenting apparently convinced Boss she should keep a closer eye on her daughter.
One evening, Boss came to see Rockefeller and Reigh in their play. Rockefeller stalked around the stage outfitted as Mars, the Roman god of war. He only had a few lines but delivered them with the same earnestness he showed during rehearsals, where he pestered Haehnel to explain his character's motivation. After the show, Boss took Reigh home while Rockefeller put away his costume. When he couldn't reach Boss on her cell phone, he looked shaken. "He kept calling and calling," says a fellow actor. "I honestly thought he was worried [Boss] was going to abduct her."
If Boss had her doubts, she wasn't alone. Cornish is a small town, and if you act strangely enough, people are bound to start talking. In the midst of the play, a friend of Haehnel's pulled him aside. "You know, his connection to the Rockefellers is tenuous," the friend said. "There's a rumor that he's not connected at all."
Just as Rockefeller had insisted on moving to Cornish, Boss demanded the family's 2006 move to Boston. McKinsey had transferred her to its Park Plaza office, and she already had a rental on Beacon Hill. The tension between the couple didn't show as they toured the $2.7 million townhouse at 68 Pinckney. As Reigh chatted with the broker, her parents decided that the five-bedroom house was perfect: It was at once grand enough to befit an executive reportedly making close to $1 million a year, and homey enough to raise a family in.
Rockefeller came to love his new neighborhood as much as his new home. From Hollywood to Wall Street, he had always been drawn to places that represented a sort of cultural shorthand for the best of their kind. He believed Beacon Hill was "the only choice for bluebloods," says a friend. Yet at times his grasp of status symbols seemed both shaky and hopelessly out of date. He once remarked that Chanel No. 5 was his favorite perfume, in a manner that suggested he was smitten most with the brand name. On another occasion, while shopping for a piano, he claimed to a friend that "Moonlight Sonata" was his favorite work. "It's such an overplayed piece, but it seemed like he didn't know any better," the friend says. But he'd learn. He started studying up on the history of the neighborhood and his home's location on the fashionable side of it. Rockefeller came to identify so closely with the community that he created a new e-mail address for himself: clark@beacon-hill.net.
On Beacon Hill he found people who were intrigued by his pedigree, but who tried hard not to show it. After meeting him on the street or at a party, where Rockefeller always introduced himself by his full name, it was not uncommon for strangers to Google him or mention to friends that they'd met a member of the famous clan. "The good thing about social climbing is that there is a viral aspect to it, where other people do the work for you," says a resident. Even as the boastful newcomer dispensed his stories in a decidedly un–New England way, his neighbors were quick to absolve him with the rationale that people of a certain status are allowed their little eccentricities. It's exciting to have a Rockefeller for a neighbor; his presence reinforces the idea that you live somewhere special. After all, a Beacon Hill without Rockefellers (or the Brahmin equivalent) might as well be the South End.
It wasn't long before Rockefeller was recognized up and down Charles Street. In the morning, he'd visit the Starbucks at the corner of Beacon—passing another Starbucks on the way—to get his tea at the neighborhood's busiest morning social center. At dinnertime, he often took his daughter to the Paramount café. Once, after a server there handed Reigh a children's menu, she handed it right back. "We are adults," she said. "We would like adult menus." Rockefeller also became a regular at Savenor's meat market, where he'd complain when his favorite lamb sausage was sold out. And everywhere he went, he was eager to display what he considered the appropriate local plumage. "He tried so hard to blend in," says one Charles Street shop owner. "But he weirdly stood out. He wore Nantucket Reds, whale-embroidered pants. He was a caricature more than anything."
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Rockefeller's daughter won him a degree of respectability that he wouldn't have had on his own. When Boss and Rockefeller began sending Reigh to Southfield, an exclusive all-girls school in Brookline, Rockefeller would see her off to the bus stop, which is in front of the Hampshire House on Beacon Street. Several other prestigious private schools pick up children there, and the stretch of sidewalk has become a place where parents stay to chat after their kids are gone. There, in fall 2006, Rockefeller met a woman who he'd later call his best friend.
Emma (whose name has been changed at her request) is tall and slim. She dresses in designer jeans and peasant tops that make it tough to guess she is in her late thirties. The other parents weren't quick to approach her when she moved to the area with her new husband. "I think everyone thought I was a nanny," she says. "It's very hard to get into a new society. Clark was the first person who started to talk to me and brought me in." They began hanging out at the Starbucks after the buses left.
Over time, Rockefeller pulled into his orbit a host of other local characters who spent their mornings at the coffee shop. The group eventually named itself the Café Society, and its members would discuss art, culture, and politics, just like the Beacon Hill salons of yore. Rockefeller was admitted to more-traditional clubs as well, including the century-old Algonquin, where he was appointed one of 10 directors running a club of several hundred members. He's rumored to have joined the Sports Club/LA (one secondhand story puts him there working out in a Harvard sweatshirt, another college he periodically claimed to have attended).
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To his growing list of affiliations, Rockefeller also added a few that revolved, ostensibly, around his daughter. He began reading to children at the Boston Athenaeum, and volunteering at the Clay Center observatory, a $16 million science center on the campus of his daughter's school named for Boston businessman Landon Clay. It couldn't have been lost on Rockefeller that Reigh provided him something of a social advantage. At the very least, she completed the image—certainly more effectively than the whale-embroidered pants did. Those who initially thought Rockefeller was, as one shopkeeper put it, "a weird loner," admitted their minds changed when they saw him with her.
In fact, other fathers on Beacon Hill came to envy Rockefeller's connection with his daughter. They noticed how he'd meet her at the bus stop and carry her on his shoulders all the way home. They would see him taking Reigh to karate classes at Hill House and sticking around to watch when some of the other parents went out to run errands. "Even the people who didn't really know him, knew him as a great father," says a neighbor. "Those of us who are fathers wished we could spend day in, day out with our daughters."
Rockefeller had hit the Beacon Hill trifecta: His name earned him notoriety, his wife's money bought him a residence on a well-regarded street, and he had a busy social life built around his little girl. "He was very much a part of the neighborhood," says a resident. "He was part of the fabric of Beacon Hill." It must have felt as if it could go on like that forever.
The reality of Rockefeller's life behind closed doors on Pinckney Street was far from perfect. The marriage between Rockefeller and Boss had been rocky for years. They had even separated once, before Reigh was born, but Rockefeller managed to woo her back. Finally, in January 2007, Boss filed for divorce. Rockefeller eventually moved into a second-floor walkup on Beacon Street, close to Reigh's bus stop. Weeks after he moved in, boxes still sat unpacked against the wall. Around this time he responded to a friend's e-mail with a terse reply: "Life not particularly happy right now. Will get back to you soon." The friend never heard from him again.
In times of crisis, Rockefeller sought solace in story lines he could control. He had once boasted to Emma of being the inspiration for the fussy character of Dr. Niles Crane on Frasier, and now he decided that they would write a sitcom of their own. They called it Less Than Proper and penned 18 episodes, often doing their best work at the Starbucks. The Café Society was part of the inspiration for the show, which would revolve around four men who hung out at a coffee shop. One recurring trope would involve the mayor of Boston popping up in unlikely places to dispense advice to the Rockefeller character. "It's so interesting that his mind would go there," says Emma. "That the mayor would have these conversations with him like he was really important." Not content to merely cowrite the scripts, Rockefeller planned to star in Less Than Proper as well. The man who had only months earlier ducked a society photographer had seemingly abandoned all of his concern for anonymity. He began brushing up on his acting skills in a comedy class at ImprovBoston.
Just as Landon Clay had funded the observatory at Reigh's school, Rockefeller wanted one plot of the sitcom to involve his character donating a huge science center. Over time, Emma assumed the duty of dialing back Rockefeller's outrageousness. "He's very smart, he's a dreamer," she says. "A smart dreamer is going to knock everything out of proportion."
By that summer, Rockefeller's divorce had grown even more contentious. Boss hired a private investigator to look into Rockefeller's background. She wondered if he was squirreling away money, but the investigator found no hidden assets. (Rockefeller's scheming probably would've been less ambitious: He once advised a friend going through a divorce to fill up her Starbucks gift card before her husband cut off her bank account.) The curious thing, the investigator told Boss, was that he couldn't find any record of Rockefeller at all from before they met in 1993. Boss filed an affidavit with the probate court that said she now doubted who her husband was.
When Rockefeller responded by refusing to provide proof of his identity—if anyone found out he had overstayed his visa he might never see Reigh again—he effectively guaranteed that the resulting visitation rules would be strict. And they were. The agreement finalized in December 2007 called for Boss, who was transferring to McKinsey's London office, to bring Reigh to visit her father three times a year, and for each meeting to be supervised by a social worker.
Rockefeller's carefully constructed life was falling apart. Without his wife's bank account, he couldn't really afford to live on Beacon Hill. Without his daughter, he had lost his most reliable companion, one who helped him blend in with the neighbors. He stopped going to the Paramount for dinner, and would resign as a director of the Algonquin the next spring, saying he could no longer pay his dues.
To friends, Rockefeller seemed particularly unhappy when he didn't have a plan for himself. He and Emma would regularly walk over the Fiedler Footbridge to the Esplanade to work on the sitcom. They'd inevitably choose the same bench, one that has a plaque sunk in the concrete that says, "Enjoy yourself! It's later than you think." Rockefeller now often turned the conversation to his personal life, and to how he would get his daughter back. "Clark was trying to figure out how to be who he was," Emma says. "He was a lost soul.
But of course Rockefeller did have a plan: He would reinvent himself once again. In a document filed in court after his arrest, prosecutors say that Rockefeller contacted a Baltimore real estate firm as early as last October, two months before his divorce was finalized. Introducing himself as Charles "Chip" Smith, he explained that he was a ship's captain relocating from South America with his daughter, who he called Muffy.
Rockefeller had taken a break from working on the sitcom during the worst days of the divorce, but now jumped back into it with a new focus. The tone grew harsher. In these scripts his character, who also calls his daughter by the pet name Snooks, goes through a divorce. In one scene, meeting with his attorney, he wonders why his soon-to-be ex-wife would get custody. "I just so hate to have Snooks have to be with that person. It is just not right," the character says.
Rockefeller was still making the social rounds, but a hint of desperation had begun to show through his boasts. On Valentine's Day, he arrived at the Taj for the opening party of Boston Ballet's Romeo and Juliet. He told a woman there he was an MIT-trained astrophysicist who had worked out a way to predict, with mathematical certainty, the outcome of a coin toss. He invited her to his apartment to see what he said was a collection of Rothkos. She declined, thinking the invitation awfully forward. Three days later at the Algonquin Club, he tried to connect with another woman, again introducing himself as a physicist. He asked if she wanted to go sailing, which struck her as ill timed: It was snowing outside.
A few weeks later, Rockefeller let his lease expire. He moved some belongings into storage, and sold others. Without a place of his own, he's said to have spent some of his nights at the Algonquin, sleeping in one of the rooms the club makes available for members, and others couch-surfing at the homes of his friends.
He simultaneously began to divorce himself from his fellow members of the Café Society. After telling them he would buy the group tickets for the Taste of Beacon Hill in May, he never followed through. He didn't show up at the event itself, either. "It was one of the first times that he really skipped out on us," Emma says. Ten days later, on May 30, Rockefeller quietly registered a corporation to buy a $432,000 carriage house on Ploy Street in Baltimore. In Boston, he told Emma he was buying a new home—but placed it in New Hampshire. "It was almost like he was giving you hints at the truth," she says, "like he wanted to say what he was really doing."
On the morning of Sunday, July 27, Rockefeller and a social worker arrived to pick up Reigh at the Four Seasons, where she was staying with her mother. It was the first time Rockefeller had seen his daughter in seven months. The three headed to the Algonquin, then to a playground. Walking up Marlborough Street, Rockefeller drew the social worker's attention to some renovations on a building, then tossed Reigh into a waiting SUV and jumped in after her. Just like that, Clark Rockefeller was gone.
Clark Rockefeller may no longer stroll the streets of Beacon Hill, but the stories about him go on. At first, some who knew him best were embarrassed that they had been taken in. That feeling has since largely passed. "Everyone is playing it off like a joke," says one resident. At dinner parties on Brimmer Street or while browsing in the shops on the flat of the hill, people amuse themselves by recounting tales of the times they spoke to him, of how they recognized right away that something wasn't quite right. At least that's the story they tell themselves.
Today, Rockefeller awaits his kidnapping trial in a seventh-floor cell of the Nashua Street jail, which sits just outside Beacon Hill. For some of his former neighbors, his presence there is a reminder of the last time they saw him, at the very place the Nashua Street jail was built to replace.
This past February's Beacon Hill Winter Dance was held at the Liberty Hotel, which is housed in the shell of the former Charles Street Jail. Organizers had decorated the tables with plastic handcuffs, sheriff's badges, and water pistols; some of the trivia cards they'd drawn up for icebreakers mentioned famous former inmates, like Frank Abagnale Jr., whose exploits as a con man were celebrated in the movie Catch Me If You Can. As always, Rockefeller mingled among the black-tie crowd, charming women who had previously known him only by reputation. At one point, he was cajoled into posing for a photo wearing a pair of handcuffs and a Cheshire cat grin. The contrast between the snapshot made that evening and the ones of a cuffed Rockefeller that would later appear in the newspapers was striking. Whatever a Rockefeller is supposed to look like, the sad-faced man on the front page clearly didn't fit the bill.
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During a court hearing, Rockefeller's attorney Stephen Hrones argued that his client should be freed on bail until his trial, which is scheduled for March (he's pleaded not guilty). Rockefeller can no longer run, Hrones argued: His face is known all over the country. The judge seemed to agree, but nevertheless set bail at $50 million in cash—a sum far beyond the reach of the man police had unmasked as Christian Karl Gerhartstreiter, but who still insists on being known as Clark Rockefeller. "He's not one of the rich Rockefellers," Hrones protested later, incredulous that the judge altogether.
Originally published in Boston magazine November 2008
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/a_most_proper_con/page1[quote]
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Posts: 1091
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:24 pm |
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'Clark Rockefeller' must wait for his gold coins
November 6, 2008 11:26 AM
By John R. Ellement, [Boston] Globe Staff
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter must wait a little while longer to regain control of $280,000 in gold coins that the FBI confiscated during his arrest earlier this year on charges he kidnapped his daughter after a messy divorce.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Denner said today in Suffolk Superior Court that he was close to an agreement with prosecutors for the return of the coins, which were seized during Gerhartsreiter's arrest in Baltimore after an international manhunt.
"Essentially, it's his money and the government has no right to it,’" Denner said outside court after a hearing.
It has not been alleged that the gold is connected to any crime, and Gerhartsreiter can use the gold to pay his defense lawyers. Denner said that prosecutors want to document the coins in case there is a need to introduce them at trial.
Earlier this week Denner joined Gerhartsreiter’s defense team, which includes Boston attorney Stephen Hrones. Gerhartsreiter is a former German national who used a strong of aliases, including Clark Rockefeller.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's office has labeled him a “person of interest’’ in the case of a California couple who vanished in the 1980s when Gerhartsreiter was renting an apartment in their guesthouse.
Under the Rockefeller name, Gerhartsreiter married Sandra Boss, and the couple had a daughter, Reigh, seven years ago. He is accused of kidnapping the girl during a visit supervised by a social worker in Boston on July 27.
Gerhartsreiter’s former wife is also laying a claim to the gold coins. Through her attorneys, Boss is asking a Suffolk Probate and Family Court judge to rule that Gerhartsreiter violated a custody agreement when he allegedly kidnapped their daughter and took her on the run for five days.
Boss wants 120 of the coins to recoup $80,000 in expenses, according to court filings reviewed by the Globe. A probate hearing has been set for Nov. 12.
Gerhartsreiter did not appear today in Suffolk Superior Court. He is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to custodial kidnapping, giving police a false name, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/11/gerhr_must_wait.html
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| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:31 pm |
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Rockefeller hires legal dream team
By Laurel J. Sweet and Jessica Van Sack
bostonherald.com
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The ex-wife of international impostor Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter is deman | |
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