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"The Man in the Rockefeller Suit!" Great Scam Read...for those who need Break from Politics!

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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-10-08 09:25 PM
Original message
"The Man in the Rockefeller Suit!" Great Scam Read...for those who need Break from Politics!
Edited on Wed Dec-10-08 09:26 PM by KoKo01
(If you have the time..this is an Incredible Read....Like a mystery about "Identity Theft" or going back to the "Man Who had a Thousand Faces" about how anyone could spend decades stealing the identity of a Rockefeller with a long history..along with 'bones in the swimming pool!'} :eyes:


The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

By snatching his seven-year-old daughter from her mother’s custody, after a bitter divorce, the man calling himself Clark Rockefeller blew the lid off a lifelong con game which had culminated with his posing as a scion of the famous dynasty. The 47-year-old impostor charmed his way into exclusive communities, clubs, and financial institutions—marrying a Harvard M.B.A.; working at Kidder, Peabody; and showing off an extraordinary art collection—until his arrest brought him face-to-face with his past and with questions regarding skeletal remains dug up in a California backyard.
by Mark Seal January 2009


On a sunny Sunday last July, Clark Rockefeller left his stately accommodations in Boston’s venerable Algonquin Club, the gentlemen’s establishment founded in 1886. Dressed in khakis and a blue Lacoste shirt, he was carrying his seven-year-old daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, whom he called Snooks, on his shoulders, walking toward Boston Common, where they were going to ride the swan boats in the Public Garden.

“Good morning, Mr. Rockefeller,” people greeted him, for he was well known in this Beacon Hill neighborhood. He had lived here for a year and a half in a $2.7 million, four-story, ivy-covered town house on one of the best streets. But that was before his wife, Sandra, left him and dragged him through a humiliating divorce, taking not only the Boston house but also their second home, in New Hampshire. In addition, she won custody of their daughter, moving her to London with her, and restricting him to three eight-hour visits a year, in the company of a social worker, who was tagging along that morning like a third wheel.

Read about another fame-seeking impostor in “The Counterfeit Rockefeller,” by Bryan Burrough. Above, Christopher Rocancourt. Courtesy of the East Hampton Village Police Department.

Nevertheless, he was still Clark Rockefeller. At 47, he still had his name, his intelligence, an extraordinary art collection, close friends in high places, and his memberships in clubs up and down the Eastern Seaboard, where he could sleep and take his meals, having long ago decided that hotels and restaurants were for the bourgeoisie. He also had a divorce settlement of $800,000, at least $300,000 of which he had converted into Krugerrands and then into gold U.S. coins, keeping the rest in cash. And now he had his beloved daughter with him again, for a blissful day together.

As they approached Marlborough Street, a tree-lined avenue on which Edward Kennedy has a house, a black S.U.V. limousine cruised to the curb. Rockefeller had told the driver that he and Snooks had a lunch date in Newport, Rhode Island, with a senator’s son, and that he might need help getting rid of a clingy friend (the court-appointed social worker), who might try to get into the limo. Having assured Mr. Rockefeller that nobody would get into the car without his consent—the ride, after all, was costing him $3,000—the driver wasn’t surprised, as he looked in his rearview mirror, to see Rockefeller with Snooks on his shoulders and a clingy sort of guy right behind them.

Suddenly, Rockefeller pushed his pursuer away, put his daughter down, yanked the car door open, and pulled the child into the limo so fast that she hit her head on the doorframe. “Go! Go!” he shouted, and the driver stepped on the gas, dragging the social worker, who had hold of the back-door handle, several yards before he let go and fell to the pavement.

Within minutes, according to Rockefeller’s indictment, he told the driver to pull over. Then he hailed a cab, explaining to the limo driver that he wanted to take his daughter to Massachusetts General Hospital in order to make sure the bump on her head was not serious. He instructed the limo driver to wait for him in a nearby parking lot. The driver did as he was told, and waited approximately two hours, but his $3,000 customer never showed up. Meanwhile, Rockefeller had taken the taxi to the Boston Sailing Center, where one of his many female friends was waiting for him. She had agreed to drive him to New York in her white Lexus for $500. “Hurry!,” Rockefeller implored her, saying that he and Snooks had to catch a train that would get them to a boat launch on Long Island by eight p.m.


http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/fake_rockefeller200901
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-10-08 09:50 PM
Response to Original message
1. BTW...if anyone gets through this long article or has read it..QUESTION!
Edited on Wed Dec-10-08 09:51 PM by KoKo01
How did this guy get along so long being hired by Wall St. Bankers and the firm that hired Chelsea Clinton and manage to work himself into this Exclusive Club Lifstyle...without ANY MONEY?

Vanity Fair Reporter never answered how he he did it except to say it was his "cleverness and wit."

If a guy like this could live this kind of lifestyle with no credentials...then we can kinda figure out WHY AMERICA IS A MESS! AND...that his former second wife has a cushy job in London raking in money after the debts left by these two is also a mystery that makes me wonder about our "Bail Out of Wall St."
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SheilaT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-10-08 11:41 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. What I really want to know
is how did he get all the valuable art that's mentioned several times in the article.
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 09:06 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Reading to the end...with your same questions...seems it was "forged art."
The guy was so clever he managed to find a great forger who copied the art and it was part of his scam.

I still can't figure out how he financed himself all those years to buy the "monogrammed clothes down to slippers and PJ's." I wish the article had posted more about that. Article says he lived very frugally..but never talks about the guy ever having a "REAL JOB." Maybe he just lived off the folks he met along the way. He was so entertaining he was the ultimate SCAM ARTIST...finding folks who would fund him thinking he was "Cool" all along the way? :shrug:
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