The Man in the Rockefeller Suit
Read The Man in the Rockefeller Suit Online
Authors: Mark Seal
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Criminals & Outlaws, #True Crime, #Espionage
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 - Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter: Bergen, Germany
CHAPTER 2 - Strangers on a Train
CHAPTER 4 - Christopher Chichester: San Marino, California
CHAPTER 5 - The Secret Mission
CHAPTER 6 - Christopher Crowe: Greenwich, Connecticut
CHAPTER 9 - Clark Rockefeller: New York, New York
CHAPTER 11 - “San Marino Bones”
CHAPTER 12 - The Last Will and Testament of Didi Sohus
CHAPTER 13 - The Country Squire
CHAPTER 16 - The Boston Brahmin
CHAPTER 17 - Peach Melba Nights
CHAPTER 18 - “Find Out Who He Is”
CHAPTER 19 - Chip Smith: Baltimore, Maryland
VIKING
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First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Mark Seal, 2011
All rights reserved
Portions of this book appeared in “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit,”
Vanity Fair.
Excerpts from transcript of “San Marino Bones” episode of
Unsolved Mysteries,
January 13, 1995. Courtesy of
Unsolved Mysteries
© 1995.
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
Insert page 2 (top):
Photograph courtesy of Thomas Shweiger;
2 (middle and bottom), 3 (top):
© Argum/Einberger;
4 (middle):
Chris Newberg;
4 (bottom):
Courtesy Grindhouse Pictures AB and Mats Larson;
5 (top):
San Marino Tribune,
used by permission of The San Marino Tribune Company, Inc.;
6 (bottom):
Sue Bermudez Coffman;
7 (top and bottom):
Jon Gilbert Fox;
8 (top and bottom), 9 (top and bottom):
Laura White;
10 (top):
Susan Symonds for Infinity Portrait Design;
10 (bottom):
© 2007 Don Harney;
12 (top):
Julie Gochar, Obsidian Realty;
12 (bottom):
Boston Globe
/Dina Rudick/Landov;
13 (top and bottom), 14 (top):
Boston Globe
/John Tlumacki/ Landov;
14 (bottom):
Boston Globe
/Essdras Suarez/Landov;
15 (top):
Reuters/Brian Snyder/Landov;
15 (bottom):
Boston Globe
/Bill Greene/Landov;
16 (top):
Reuters/Lisa Poole/Pool/Landov;
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Reuters/ CJ Gunther/Pool/Landov
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Seal, Mark, 1953–
The man in the Rockefeller suit: the astonishing rise and spectacular fall of a serial impostor / Mark Seal. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-51585-3
1. Gerhartsreiter, Christian, 1961–2. Impostors and imposture—United States—Case studies. I. Title.
HV6760.G47S43 2011
364.16’33—dc22
2010048908
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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As always, for Laura with all of my love
Author’s Note
T
his book is the product of almost two hundred interviews with people who crossed paths with the enigmatic man who eventually called himself Clark Rockefeller, both in Germany and in multiple states in America, as he rose through his many guises and identities.
All facts are taken from the author’s interviews, police reports, court and grand jury transcripts, and television and other media accounts.
In some instances, names were changed at the request of the sources.
Any re-creations of scenes and characters’ opinions were based on information gathered from the aforementioned interviews, police reports, court and grand jury transcripts, and television and other media accounts.
Prologue
Sunday, July 27, 2008
T
he plan was foolproof, the route rehearsed, the cast of characters in place, the itinerary perfectly organized. Outwardly calm but with his heart racing, he was at last ready to accomplish what he had been so meticulously planning for months.
He had come a long way to land in this privileged place, a fifth-floor room in Boston’s Algonquin Club, a venerable bastion of the most blue-blooded city in America, a preferred meeting place since 1886 for U.S. presidents, heads of state, and local and national aristocrats. He
belonged
here; he was a member of the board and a familiar presence in the club’s impossibly grand rooms, with their tall ceilings, museum-quality paintings, and uniformed staff, all of whom he had come to know and rely upon. His name was James Frederick Mills Clark Rockefeller—Clark to his friends but Mr. Rockefeller to everyone else.
“Good day, Mr. Rockefeller,” the waiters would say as he sat for breakfast or lunch in the dining room, with its four fireplaces and a magnificent view of Commonwealth Avenue. Or “Good evening, Mr. Rockefeller,” as they fetched him his evening sherry in the book-lined library, surrounded . by the portraits of past members, whose ranks included President Calvin Coolidge and a Who’s Who of American dignitaries. At forty-seven, he was well entrenched as a link in the country’s most fabled family, which traced its lineage back to John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil and created a dynasty of philanthropists.
Lately, a cloud had darkened Clark Rockefeller’s usually sunny façade. This explained why he was living, instead of merely lunching, in the Algonquin, which served its members as a haven not only from the unruliness of the outside world but also from temporarily painful and unfortunate events such as marital separation and, as in Rockefeller’s case, divorce. Today, however, he had reason to rejoice. He was going to spend it with his adorable little daughter, Reigh, a precious, precocious seven-year-old he called Snooks.
It was a bright Sunday morning, and he put on his customary uniform: well-worn khakis, a sky blue Lacoste shirt with the crocodile embroidered over the heart, Top-Sider boat shoes (as always, without socks), and a red baseball cap emblazoned with the word YALE. He adjusted his heavy black-framed glasses, which some people thought brought Nelson Rockefeller to mind, and proceeded from his room down the wide wooden stairway. After passing through the club’s hallway, redolent of polish and leather, he entered the imposing front lobby, where Snooks was waiting for him, along with the clinical social worker who was to chaperone their eight-hour visit. Even though Rockefeller’s ex-wife, Sandra, was just a few blocks away, she had followed a court order to ferry the child through the social worker.
“Hi, Daddy!” Snooks exclaimed, rushing over to hug him. She was small for seven, with a blond pageboy haircut and a crooked smile, wearing a sundress. Around noon, Rockefeller hoisted her on his shoulders and started walking toward Boston Common, where they had talked about riding the swan boats in the Public Garden. “Good morning, Mr. Rockefeller,” people said as he passed, for he was well known in this Beacon Hill neighborhood, having lived here for years in a four-story, ivy-covered $2.7 million town house on one of the best streets in the city. That was before Sandra dragged him through a painful and humiliating divorce, taking not only the Beacon Hill house but also their second home, in New Hampshire. She had also won custody of Snooks and moved her all the way to London, where she now worked, leaving him with only three court-supervised eight-hour visits per year. Today was the first, and his daughter had to be accompanied by Howard Yaffe, the social worker who was tagging behind them like a creaky third wheel.
But Clark Rockefeller still had his name, his intelligence, an extraordinary art collection valued at close to a billion dollars, good friends in high places, and cherished private club memberships along the eastern seaboard, where he could avoid bourgeois hotels and restaurants. Although he’d lost Snooks, he’d gotten $800,000 in the divorce settlement, and today he had his adored daughter back with him.
He turned the corner onto Marlborough Street, the tree-lined avenue where Teddy Kennedy once kept a residence. A black SUV was parked at the curb far down the block. Behind the wheel was Darryl Hopkins, a down-on-his-luck limo driver who had had the good fortune to pick up a Rockefeller in the rain one day. He had been driving through downtown Boston the previous summer when he spotted the dignified gent—soaking wet, dressed as if he had just been sailing—attempting to flag down a cab. Hopkins screeched to a stop and offered him a lift. Since then, Hopkins and his distinguished passenger had become something of a team. Rockefeller didn’t have a driver’s license but always seemed to have somewhere he needed to go, and Hopkins was more than happy to provide wheels for him.
Mr. Rockefeller had the kind of peculiarities that the driver expected from very rich people. He spoke in a heavy East Coast rich boy’s lockjaw and dressed exclusively in the uniform of the Wasp aristocracy: blue blazers and rep ties or ascots, when he wasn’t wearing khakis and a polo shirt. Before Rockefeller’s wife and little daughter had decamped for London, Hopkins used to drop off Snooks at Southfield, the exclusive private girls’ school in Brookline, and pick her up.
Today was a bit unusual. Rockefeller had told Hopkins that he and Snooks had a sailing date in Newport with the son of Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island senator who was known to be a “Rockefeller Republican.” But he said he had a problem—a clingy family friend he would have to ditch before they got in the limousine. He offered $2,500 for Hopkins’s help.
Shortly after noon, Hopkins was parked on Marlborough Street when he saw them strolling toward the limo, a short three-person parade—Rockefeller with Snooks on his shoulders, trailed by a compact middle-aged man wearing jeans and a bright yellow polo shirt.