79. The Rockefeller (Christian Gerhartsreiter)

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Speaker 2 This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 The notorious con man who police say lived the high life from Malibu Malibu to the Hamptons, dropping big names and ripping off big bucks from A-list victims who trusted him and never heard from him again.

Speaker 3 Who is this guy and how did he fool so many people?

Speaker 4 Christopher Rockefeller was obviously a phony. A descendant of that old standard oil money would never be adorned with such lousy tattoos, bathroom die jobs, or French accents.

Speaker 4 Yet people believed him. Their eyes would widen when he would introduce himself and drop that legendary name.

Speaker 4 It worked like a charm because his victims were blinded by their own greed, he would later say.

Speaker 4 If they were dumb enough to believe that he was a Rockefeller, well, maybe they only had themselves to blame.

Speaker 4 To be fair, Christopher Rockefeller certainly appeared to live like American royalty.

Speaker 4 When he surfaced in the Hamptons during the summer of 2000, The 38-year-old self-proclaimed international businessman flaunted his wealth but always picked up the tab.

Speaker 4 It was his modus operandi, first impressed with luxuries and then in classic Rockefeller philanthropic fashion, offered to share the prosperity.

Speaker 4 Becoming rich is easy, proclaimed the distant relative of a 19th century robber baron.

Speaker 4 While whining and dining or playing tennis with a new acquaintance, Christopher Rockefeller would broach the subject of an investment opportunity.

Speaker 4 He claimed he could turn a tiny seed into a large fortune in just a few months. Think about it, he would say, before excusing himself to tend to a cell phone outstretched from his assistant's hand.

Speaker 4 Mr. Kennedy is on line once, sir.

Speaker 4 Several people took the bait, including a massage therapist who gave Mr. Rockefeller $25,000 for a promised million-dollar return.

Speaker 4 Another couple forked over $50,000 that Rockefeller guaranteed would turn into $500K.

Speaker 4 And there was a real estate agent that that invested $100,000 of her own savings. None of them would see a dime.

Speaker 4 But not everybody had been fooled. The Spanish-born contemporary artist, Hinnes Saran Pagan, invited prospective buyer Christopher Rockefeller to a dinner party, knowing that he was a fraud.

Speaker 4 Everybody at the table had been tipped off and swallowed their laughs as the Rockefeller con man arrived in a Mazda and complimented the cheap jug wine he was offered.

Speaker 4 I liked him, Saran Pagan told the New York Times, but I knew he wasn't a Rockefeller. As a conman, I'll give him an 8.
He was charming and fascinating and living his own movie out there on the edge.

Speaker 4 He's committing suicide in the most beautiful way.

Speaker 4 Kevin McCrary was also skeptical. Mr.
McCrary, who had ties to the real Rockefeller family, was a friend of the massage therapist that the French Rockefeller had swindled.

Speaker 4 A simple internet search confirmed McCrary's suspicions. The only Christopher Rockefeller on record had died in 1790.

Speaker 4 McCrary went to the police, but since the investors had willingly handed over their money at the time, there was no evidence of a crime.

Speaker 4 But that changed when Christopher Rockefeller skipped out on paying the $18,000 bill at the bed and breakfast where he had been staying. On August 2, 2000, The Sulfur County Police made an arrest.

Speaker 4 Fabian Ortuna was the name on Christopher Rockefeller's French passport. The fingerprint scan revealed no other warrants in New York State.
He posted the $45,000 bail and promptly disappeared.

Speaker 4 Had the Sulfur County Police performed a nationwide search of Christopher Rockefeller's fingerprints, they would have discovered their inmate was wanted for questioning in 17 other cases.

Speaker 4 Everything from a shooting in California to smuggling diamonds from Zaire.

Speaker 4 Christophe Rochencourt was the individual's real name.

Speaker 5 Come on, this guy's gonna bring me back right here. Which car was this before? Doddy Fayette.
Who? Dude. Oh, Doddy.

Speaker 5 Yo, you're a fucker.

Speaker 5 I've heard that name somewhere.

Speaker 5 Where do I know that name from?

Speaker 5 Mickey.

Speaker 5 Where's Woody?

Speaker 5 Big Woody. What's that? Big baby.
How you doing, brother?

Speaker 5 Hey, how you doing, Corina?

Speaker 6 That's good.

Speaker 5 Let's get a picture you got. Okay, that's Pickey.
Yes, my financier. What are you guys saying?

Speaker 5 Hey, Cody.

Speaker 5 We're just

Speaker 4 A few years earlier, Christophe Rochencourt had become a fixture in Hollywood.

Speaker 4 He had made friends with the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke by promising to finance their future movies. He was always driving some kind of exotic car down the Sunset Strip.

Speaker 4 Always had a beautiful woman on his arm.

Speaker 4 In broken English, Rochencourt told people that he was a movie producer. Sometimes he was the nephew of Dino de Laurentis.
Other times he claimed to be the son of Sophia Lorin.

Speaker 4 There was no reason to doubt him. Christophe had famous friends, expensive suits, a personal bodyguard, even a Playboy Playmate wife, and a $15,000 a week suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Speaker 4 But as usual, it was all window dressing for his financial schemes.

Speaker 5 Okay, how have you been? I've been well. Good, you look good.
Yeah, you know what happened. Look this up.
What happened? What's this one?

Speaker 5 I heard that

Speaker 5 you got into it with Charlie Sheen.

Speaker 5 Oh.

Speaker 5 I'm just kidding. No, you know what happened.

Speaker 5 Mickey Rock was telling us one night that you got in trouble. Oh, yeah, right.
Or that somebody gave you trouble. Yeah, it's fine.

Speaker 5 Hold it, hold it.

Speaker 5 We miss your girlfriend.

Speaker 4 During the mid-90s, Christophe Rokencourt conned at least 20 people out of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars. Many of the victims were too embarrassed to come forward.

Speaker 4 Others he had threatened into silence. But in April 1997, Rochencourt finally landed on the FBI's radar.

Speaker 4 Christophe Rochencourt had told the Beverly Hills police that he suspected his bodyguard of stealing more than $275,000 worth of Versace suits and other clothing from an apartment he rented.

Speaker 4 In retaliation, Rochencourt's bodyguard shared with those same police information about his boss's activities.

Speaker 4 He said Rokencourt had paid a $2,000 bribe to passport clerks to obtain an American passport.

Speaker 4 The bodyguard said he had also found a stash of guns and hand grenades in Rokencourt's apartment, and that he was sneaking diamonds into the country from Africa.

Speaker 4 When the police brought Christophe Rokencourt's name to the FBI in Interpol, it revealed a sordid history.

Speaker 4 In October 1976, nine-year-old Christophe and his younger sister had been dropped off at an orphanage by their alcoholic father, a house painter, who years later was found frozen to death on a park bench.

Speaker 4 Christophe's mother, a well-known streetwalker, had abandoned the children long before then.

Speaker 4 At 16, Christoph Rochencourt left the orphanage and thus began his life of crime. He traveled throughout Europe, dabbling in petty theft and forgery.

Speaker 4 His first big score came at the age of 23, when he faked the deed to a townhouse owned by his girlfriend's father and sold it for more than a million dollars.

Speaker 4 The following year, 1994, he was implicated in an armed jewelry heist and a hostage situation in Geneva. That's when he fled to the United States.
Three years later, he was fleeing again.

Speaker 4 Christophe Rochencourt was in Hong Kong when the Beverly Hills PD raided his suite at the Beverly Wilshire in May 1997.

Speaker 4 They found his day planner, a Rolex, the illegally obtained American passport, a pistol, stacks of cash, a paper trail of fraud, and an autographed photograph of Michael Jackson.

Speaker 4 When Christophe Rokencourt was formally charged with the passport fraud in December 97, he had already returned to Los Angeles from his East Asian adventure and was hiding in plain sight.

Speaker 4 He lived with Mickey Rourke for some time and then with a girlfriend, while his playmate wife and young son stayed at the apartment.

Speaker 4 Funny enough, before the police could track Christophe Rokencourt down, he would come to them. On March 15th, 1998, a breathless Rokencourt sought refuge in a West Hollywood sheriff's office.

Speaker 4 He said cars were following him and shooting at him, but a cursory glance of Rokencourt's Humvee revealed that the shots came from inside his vehicle.

Speaker 4 Christophe Rokencourt was arrested on the outstanding passport fraud charges. His wife spent three months raising the money to bail him out.
Once free, Rokencourt fled again.

Speaker 4 That's how he ended up in New York and eventually the Hamptons. That's when Christopher Rockefeller came to life.

Speaker 4 After skipping his bail in New York, Christopher Rockefeller became Michael Van Hoeven, a Formula One race car driver living in British Columbia that was actively defrauding everyone he met.

Speaker 4 In April 2001, he conned the front desk clerk at a hotel and her boyfriend out of more than $10,000, and he took a Canadian businessman for another $100,000 in a real estate deal.

Speaker 4 Canadian authorities raided Michael Van Hoeven's apartment in response to the complaints. They discovered Rochencourt's true identity, but he remained one step ahead.

Speaker 4 But finally, on April 26, 2001, Christophe Rochencourt was tracked down by the Mounties at a seaside hotel.

Speaker 4 He was there with his son and his wife, Pia Reyes, who claimed she had no idea what kind of scams her husband was up to. Pia was released, but Christophe Rochencourt was charged with identity theft.

Speaker 4 He pleaded guilty and served about six months in a Canadian prison before being extradited to the United States to face charges in New York and L.A.

Speaker 7 Police from New York to Los Angeles said Christopher Rochencourt used phony names and bogus investment schemes to steal millions from his alleged victims.

Speaker 7 But it was the Canadian mounted police who finally arrested him near Vancouver, British Columbia.

Speaker 5 Dr. Buddha.
Yeah. Hi, sir.

Speaker 9 Mickey, I have to ask you, what do you think about your friend Chris Rockencourt being arrested for impersonating a Rockefeller who

Speaker 10 is ready?

Speaker 10 Dr. Richard Curtis.

Speaker 4 In August 2003, Christophe Rockencourt pleaded guilty to grand larceny in Sulfur County, New York. He pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges on Long Island two months later.

Speaker 4 And finally, he pleaded guilty to the passport fraud charges in California. Rochencourt was sentenced up to five years in all three cases to be served concurrently.

Speaker 4 In court, Rochencourt apologized to the judge and added, quote, I take responsibility for my actions.

Speaker 4 But he felt no remorse. In a phone interview with the New York Times, Rochencourt said he only felt sorry for his victim's greed.

Speaker 4 Christophe Rokencourt wouldn't let a silly prison sentence get him down. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Rokencourt asked, what is freedom? rhetorically.

Speaker 4 Few people understand what freedom is, he said. I am in jail, yes, but I am free.
Jail cannot take away my soul. I have brains, I have guts, I have God.
How can I feel hopeless?

Speaker 4 Christophe Rochencourt also had a book deal already, which helps, and he was being celebrated in his home country of France for beating the Americans at their own game.

Speaker 4 After almost five years behind bars, Rochencourt was released from prison in October 2005 and immediately deported.

Speaker 4 A media tour followed, including an interview on Dateline NBC, where the con man repeated his lack of remorse.

Speaker 11 You've been a dummy. You've been stupid.

Speaker 11 Just like I did prison time, I take my time. Just accept it for fact.

Speaker 11 You're not that right. You've been stupid for that time.
Just accept it. Oh, you've been wrapped off.

Speaker 11 It's what happened. But what you have done is criminal.
You admit that. No question.

Speaker 8 What you're saying, you don't don't feel any sympathy for the people who lost money because they were greedy and they believed in you and they threw money at you and you didn't pay them back.

Speaker 8 You don't feel sorry for them?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 11 I keep it all. You want to honestly, you have it.

Speaker 11 I keep it right. What do you want me to tell you? I have a feeling I don't have

Speaker 4 Rokincourt. Also, told NBC's Mike Taibbi that he was finished lying on such an extreme level.
I think it's a closed chapter, he said. Unsurprisingly, that turned out to be a lie.

Speaker 4 In July 2009, film producer Catherine Breott accused Christophe Rochencourt of ripping her off for more than $700,000.

Speaker 4 Breott had suffered a life-changing stroke a few years earlier, and according to her book, Rochencourt, with whom the producer was planning a film, took advantage of her weakness and threatened her life in exchange for increasingly large amounts of cash.

Speaker 4 Christophe Rochencourt was charged with defrauding the producer, was found guilty and sentenced to 16 months.

Speaker 4 Months after his release, Christophe Rochencourt was arrested again for bribing a French police officer for passports and visas for resale.

Speaker 4 But the world barely noticed, because around that time a more compelling and sinister Rockefeller imposter had taken his place.

Speaker 4 This time a German man used the moniker to manifest a life of luxury for himself. More proof that the Rockefeller name is the last bastion of hope for aging crooks that seemingly run out of ideas.

Speaker 4 A lifelong con artist adopts multiple aliases to escape a past littered with fraud, abuse, and maybe even murder. On this episode of Swindled.

Speaker 6 They bribed government officials.

Speaker 1 Support for swindled comes from Simply Safe. If you could actually stop someone from breaking into your home before they got inside, why wouldn't you want to? That's the idea behind Simply Safe.

Speaker 1 Real security that can stop a crime before it starts. Traditional systems wait until it's too late, but Simply Safe's active guard outdoor protection is proactive.

Speaker 1 Their AI-powered cameras detect suspicious activity and real live agents step in.

Speaker 1 They actually talk to potential intruders while they're still outside, trigger sirens, flash spotlights, and let them know the police are on the way. It's wild to watch.

Speaker 1 I've used SimplySafe for years and I trust it to protect everything that matters to me, even when I'm not home.

Speaker 1 It's reliable, simple, and honestly, kind of satisfying to know someone else is watching when I can't.

Speaker 1 Our listeners get exclusive early access to SimplySafe's Black Friday sale, where you can save 60% on any new system. This is their biggest deal of the year.

Speaker 1 There will never be a better time to get real security for your home. Go to simplysafe.com/slash swindled.
That's simplysafe.com/slash swindled to save 60%

Speaker 1 on any new system.

Speaker 5 But I'm Alfred Hitchcock. I am.

Speaker 13 I can prove it.

Speaker 5 Sure, sure. Everybody is.

Speaker 14 I am. I insist.

Speaker 13 An astounding hoax. He carried off the impersonation brilliantly, except for one thing.

Speaker 13 Bubblegum in his pocket, indeed. Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't be caught dead with a bubblegum in his pocket.

Speaker 4 Christian Karl Gerhartsreider was obsessed with American movies and television as a child. He was constantly reenacting scenes from Alfred Hitchcock.

Speaker 4 It was just one of Christian's quirky characteristics that made the young man stick out in the small German town where he grew up in the 1970s.

Speaker 4 Schoolmates and neighbors remember Christian as someone that prided himself on being different. He had long hair and wore suits to school.

Speaker 4 He was always tinkering with electronics or playing the bagpipe. He was super intelligent, but weird.

Speaker 4 Christian reportedly even purchased a hearse, which he parked in front of his parents' house and often slept in it. He was an unforgettable kid.

Speaker 4 But then one day, in 1978, he left his hometown and never looked back.

Speaker 4 Christian Gehartsrider told his parents that he had gotten a job as a disc jockey in New York. He asked them to send him $250 a month to help him get by because the airliner had lost his luggage.

Speaker 4 Christian was 17 years old and already fabricating elaborate stories. His parents never saw him again.

Speaker 4 In reality, Christian Gehartsreider was not in New York. He was in Connecticut.
Without any prearrangements, Gehartsreider had contacted a family he had met on a train in Germany upon his arrival.

Speaker 4 He lived with them for a few weeks before posting a classified ad for room and board. The Savio family in Berlin, Connecticut welcomed the young man into their home.
The lies began immediately.

Speaker 4 Gehart's writer told the Savios that his father was a wealthy industrialist who supplied parts for Mercedes-Benz.

Speaker 4 The truth was, Christian's father was a house painter. He had not grown up rich.

Speaker 4 Christian had also changed his name. Christopher Gerhardt is the name he used to enroll at the local high school, even though he had already graduated before he left Germany.

Speaker 4 It didn't take long before he wore out his welcome. The oldest Savio child, Edward, says that he and his younger sister, whom everyone called snooks, got along with Chris just fine.

Speaker 4 But Chris began to treat the rest of the family and their living arrangement as if it were beneath him.

Speaker 4 After he was kicked out, Chris Gerhardt bounced around a few more houses in Connecticut before leaving to attend university in Milwaukee. There he accomplished one of his earliest goals.

Speaker 4 On February 20th, 1981, he married Amy Gerisold.

Speaker 4 Chris Garrard became a legal United States citizen two months later. He promptly moved to California and never spoke to Amy again.

Speaker 4 In California, Christian Gerhardt's writer re-reinvented himself. Chris Gerhardt became Christopher Mountbatten Chichester, the 21-year-old 13th Baronet of England.

Speaker 4 even though the 11th baronet was still alive and breathing. Nevertheless, Christopher Chichester sold it well.

Speaker 4 He settled in the small, wealthy city of San Marino in northeast Los Angeles and ingratiated himself with the neighbors at the local Episcopal church.

Speaker 4 Chichester passed out business cards that contained his family's crest and spoke like Thurston Howe III, the wealthy caricature from Gilligan's Island. It was beyond parody.

Speaker 4 But people seemed to like him. Chichester told them that he was in California to study film at USC or to teach a film class, depending on who asked.

Speaker 4 He was helpful with computers and was even given his own public access TV show called Inside San Marino.

Speaker 4 Still, people thought it was odd that such a wealthy man drove such a shitty car and would practically beg for food.

Speaker 16 He professed to be some kind of a Hollywood script writer, but I never saw him do any research at the library on anything.

Speaker 16 So I thought it was pretty strange.

Speaker 4 Chris Chichester was also secretly living in a guest house that belonged to a woman named Dee Dee Sohas. Most would agree that the conditions were unfit for a man of such hereditary dignity.

Speaker 4 By all accounts, Dee Dee, his landlord, was a cantankerous lady who lived in her bathroom with an everlasting drink in hand.

Speaker 4 Her 27-year-old adopted son, John Sohus, and his new wife, Linda, lived in the main house, too, with their five or six cats.

Speaker 4 John Sohas was a five-foot six-inch, bashful mama's boy with unkempt hair and Coke bottle glasses. He made a living as a computer programmer.
He had a laundry list of medical issues and hobbies.

Speaker 4 Most of the latter revolved around science fiction and fantasy. John met his wife during a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Linda was the light of his life.

Speaker 4 She stood six foot tall and heavy and had the confidence to match an R Crumb prototype. Linda was a fantasy artist that worked at the cool bookstore.
She and John were a perfect match.

Speaker 4 They shared dreams and aspirations. They were optimistic about the future.
Linda's art career was just getting started. They were saving their money to get a place of their own someday.

Speaker 4 But for now, the couple was stuck living with John's mother and that creepy Chichester guy in the guest house out back.

Speaker 4 It was fine for now, but John and Linda would jump at the first opportunity to get out.

Speaker 4 That opportunity arrived unexpectedly one day in 1985. Linda Soas stopped showing up to work at the bookstore.
She had said something about John being offered a secret government job in New York.

Speaker 4 They were going to go check it out, but that was weeks ago. They should have been back by now.
Linda's boss finally got in touch with Dee Dee, John's mother.

Speaker 4 Dee Dee said John and Linda were in Paris on a top-secret mission. Sure enough, proof arrived in the mail.
We got a postcard

Speaker 12 from her six months later saying that she and John were in Paris.

Speaker 4 The postcard read, not quite New York, but not bad, and it was signed by the couple. But the bookstore's owners still didn't believe it.

Speaker 12 And when she and John disappeared, she abandoned her cats and horses and horse people don't do that. I mean, it's so it was like, so that was odd.

Speaker 4 There was so much that didn't make sense.

Speaker 4 Linda's mother, Susan Mayfield, and Linda's best friend, Susan Kaufman, also received postcards that contained similar messages, but no one knew what they meant.

Speaker 4 Were they supposed to believe that John and Linda just spontaneously moved to France without telling anybody? It was so out of character.

Speaker 4 Also, they didn't have the money to do something like that, nor would they ever abandon their cats.

Speaker 4 Linda's youngest sister filed a missing person report on April 8th, 1985. At the Solas residence, detectives found Linda's art supplies and John's insulin.
All of their clothes were still there.

Speaker 4 The couple had packed very little.

Speaker 4 When questioned, Didi Soas repeated that they had been called away on secret duty. Didi said she was communicating with them through an intermediary.
And who might that be, the police asked?

Speaker 4 Why, it was none other than the guesthouse tenant, Christopher Mountbatten Chichester.

Speaker 4 When detectives arrived on his doorstep, Christopher Chichester greeted them in the nude. When asked to cover himself, Chichester refused.
No, I am a nudist, he said.

Speaker 4 That was the extent of his cooperation. Without any obvious signs of foul play or bodies, the detectives were stuck.
They asked the public for help in generating new leads.

Speaker 10 And the strange saga of John and Linda Solas.

Speaker 10 In 1985, the young couple left their home in a well-to-do Los Angeles suburb for a two-week trip to New York. They never returned.

Speaker 4 One neighbor reported that she had smelled a foul odor coming from the Sohos' guesthouse chimney.

Speaker 4 According to the Los Angeles Times, that neighbor confronted Chichester about reeking up the neighborhood. Chichester told the neighbor to relax.
He was just burning carpet.

Speaker 4 A different neighbor reported that Christopher Chichester had borrowed a chainsaw from him around the same time John and Linda Sohas went missing.

Speaker 4 Chichester had also apparently tried to sell an Oriental rug with a small bloodstain.

Speaker 4 There was also that patch of ground in the Soas' backyard that looked like it had been recently dug up and recovered. Friends of Chichester's had noticed it when he threw a party.

Speaker 4 He had dismissed it as plumbing problems.

Speaker 4 All signs were pointing in a particular direction, but by the time the San Marino police were ready to make a move, Christopher Chichester had vanished.

Speaker 4 If asked, he probably would have told them that he had more important things to do.

Speaker 10 Didi also reported that her son's pickup truck was now missing, though she could not say when it had disappeared.

Speaker 10 However, there still was no proof that a crime had been committed, and the investigation stalled.

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Speaker 18 Greenwich, for simple, unaffected charm and beauty, holds its own for those who know it well.

Speaker 18 I love to think of it as an undiscovered country. I know some who've chosen Greenwich for its pure air,

Speaker 18 for its educational advantages for children,

Speaker 18 for its yacht clubs and country clubs,

Speaker 18 or just for its sheer beauty and its fine people.

Speaker 18 My heart lives, and I know it will always live in Greenwich.

Speaker 4 The year was 1988. Christopher Crowe had a truck to sell.

Speaker 4 We told the pastor's son at the local Episcopal church in Greenwich, Connecticut, that it was a production vehicle from a television studio where he used to produce programs such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Speaker 4 See, there's his name right there, Christopher Crowe, on the movie posters and the end credits.

Speaker 4 Christopher Crowe said he no longer needed the truck because he had switched careers. Crowe was now working on Wall Street as a securities trader, even though he had zero experience.

Speaker 4 His new contacts in his new city had secured him the job.

Speaker 4 Christopher Bishop, the pastor's son, agreed to purchase the truck, but Christopher Crowe did not hold the title.

Speaker 4 Bishop contacted the California Department of Motor Vehicles to legitimize the sale and found out that there was a lien on the 1985 White Nissan.

Speaker 4 The truck's owner, John Sohas, had stopped making payments three years earlier.

Speaker 4 Naturally, this attempted transaction caught the attention of the San Marino police. They spoke with Christopher Bishop and showed him a photograph of Christopher Chichester.

Speaker 4 Yes, Bishop recognized him. Christopher Chichester and Christopher Crow were indeed the same man.
The haunt was on.

Speaker 4 San Marino detectives tracked Christopher Crowe down at an investment firm called Kidder, Peabody ⁇ Company. It was the third position on Wall Street Crow had scored in less than two years.

Speaker 4 He had been fired from previous gigs for not producing. He had no idea what he was doing.

Speaker 4 But Christopher Crowe continued falling upward and was on the verge of being offered a permanent position at Kidder Peabody that would have paid him $300,000 a year.

Speaker 4 But Crowe mysteriously disappeared when investigators started calling his workplace to arrange an interview. The authorities had lost track of Christopher Chichester again.

Speaker 4 Three years later, at an Episcopal church in New York City, a new member of the congregation was turning heads. His name was James Frederick Mills Clark Rockefeller.
But please call him Clark.

Speaker 4 It was true that Clark Rockefeller was one of those Rockefellers, but his new acquaintances were more impressed with his charm and knowledge.

Speaker 4 Clark himself didn't even seem very concerned with material things.

Speaker 20 He knew a lot of very interesting facts. He seemed to have a very good memory of numbers.
He was very intelligent. He was one of the most intelligent people I'd ever known.

Speaker 4 That's Sandra Boss. She met Clark Rockefeller through her twin sister, who had met him at church.
Clark arranged a clue-themed party to meet Sandra, the woman he had heard so much about.

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss arrived as Miss Scarlett and wore a red scarf around her neck. Clark Rockefeller, the host, wore maroon trousers.
He introduced himself as Professor Plum.

Speaker 4 Sandra and and Clark soon found themselves lost in conversation. This man was intelligent and well-read, a Yale graduate that spoke five or six languages, including Klingon.

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss couldn't wait to learn more about this absolute unicorn of a human being.

Speaker 20 He told me that his parents were George Rockefeller and Mary Roberts. He told me that his parents had been killed together in a car accident when he was 18.

Speaker 4 The only problem was that Sandra Boss was still finishing school at Harvard, but she visited New York as often as possible after meeting that spring 1993 and Clark Rockefeller would visit Boston.

Speaker 4 Before long they were in a relationship. It happened so fast but felt natural all the same.

Speaker 4 After graduating Sandra took a job in the city at a consulting firm called McKinsey and Company. Clark did something for work.

Speaker 4 Clark kept a job because he needed something to do for one.

Speaker 4 And two, the vast majority of his inherited wealth was tied up in fine art, which was held in trust for at least 10 more years. Meaning he couldn't cash out even if he wanted to.

Speaker 4 Though Clark said he never felt tempted to, anyway.

Speaker 4 Clark Rockefeller was a peculiar man indeed. He always wore a hat in public.
He told Sandra it was because of his name and privacy.

Speaker 4 Clark also refused to fly, and he wouldn't travel to Connecticut or California for some reason. Clark also didn't have a driver's license.
He told Sandra it was because of an issue with his vision.

Speaker 4 For the same reason, potentially, Clark Rockefeller did not enjoy paintings containing the color green. When it came to food, he was even pickier.

Speaker 4 Clark insisted upon eating mostly white meals, and the utensils, anything but metal, please.

Speaker 4 Finally, Sandra Boss must have thought, a man who knows what he wants. In the spring of 1994, Clark proposed to her on the island of Islesboro, off the coast of Maine.

Speaker 4 They married on October 14th, 1995, at a Quaker meeting house in Nantucket. Clark had insisted on a Quaker wedding because of its simplicity.

Speaker 4 But ever since that day, Sandra Boss claims things became so much more complicated.

Speaker 4 Her husband, Clark Rockefeller, became an unpleasant leech. He stopped working entirely.
His charm had evaporated. It was like his entire personality had changed.

Speaker 4 Luckily, Sandra Boss's career was thriving. In a few short years, she had become a senior partner at McKinsey and Company.
She was making almost $2 million annually.

Speaker 4 Clark was pushing her the entire way, demanding she earn more and controlling it all. All of the bills and everything were in Sandra's name.

Speaker 20 He became

Speaker 20 much more

Speaker 20 directive about my movements. Well, he wanted to walk me to and from work

Speaker 20 every day. He

Speaker 20 began to be less supportive of my seeing my friends.

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss felt isolated. She worked long hours and came home to a monster.
Her husband, Clark, was isolating her from her friends and family.

Speaker 4 He was screaming at her all the time, depriving her of sleep. He became, quote, extremely scary.

Speaker 4 But she stayed with him at first because she was taught never to give up on a marriage. He was just having some kind of mental breakdown, she figured.

Speaker 4 In early 2000, Sandra agreed to move with Clark somewhere outside the city. First, the couple moved to Nantucket, then to Woodstock, Vermont.

Speaker 4 Clark wanted to be even more remote, so they moved again to Cornish, New Hampshire.

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss continued to work in New York City, which meant she lived out of a hotel during the work week and returned to her husband on her off days to see how much of her money he had spent renovating.

Speaker 4 There was no food in the house most of the time, and it was painfully cold. For Sandra Boss, Boss, everything about that Cornish New Hampshire experience was miserable.

Speaker 4 So she started spending more weekends alone in the city. She was growing apart from Clark, and he noticed.
A love bomb followed. Gifts, flowers, jewelry.

Speaker 4 Clark even traveled to see Sandra a few times to show her how much he cared. Those weekends would change their lives forever.

Speaker 4 Sandra didn't even consider it at the time, but The condoms Clark brought had been intentionally punctured. Things got a lot wetter, Sandra remembers, and I wasn't thinking to my husband.

Speaker 4 I mean, you don't really think that someone is trying to get you pregnant in that kind of context.

Speaker 4 Ray Storo, Mills' boss, was born on May 24th, 2001. Though mostly uninterested at first, Clark and his daughter eventually became inseparable.

Speaker 4 He obsessed over her clothes and appearance and her intellectual development. He began to mold the perfect child in his vision.
He even called her snooks.

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss continued to work in New York City for the next five years while Clark held down the fort in Cornish, New Hampshire.

Speaker 4 Eventually, Sandra wanted to be closer to her family, so in September 2006, she convinced Clark that they could all move to Boston together. There was a branch of McKinsey and Company there.

Speaker 4 She could tuck Ray in every night. Clark obliged.
They purchased a four-story, $2.7 million ivy-covered townhouse in Beacon Hill.

Speaker 4 While Snooks was in school, Clark would hang out at the Algonquin Club or spend time riding a sitcom with a woman he met at a bus stop.

Speaker 4 Did you know, Clark would claim, that Kelsey Grammar's character Frasier Crane was actually based on him?

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss couldn't stand this person anymore. Their four months together in Boston had solidified that fact.
Their daughter was having temper tantrums at school.

Speaker 4 They reminded Sandra of the child's father. Worst of all, Clark had given the school incorrect contact information for Sandra, so when Snooks acted up, they were forced to go to him.

Speaker 4 On January 17th, 2007, after some careful strategizing, Sandra boss filed for a divorce.

Speaker 4 She'd also hired a private detective to find out exactly who she was married to, because many things didn't add up, and she could no longer ignore it.

Speaker 4 Sandra also wanted to find out if Clark had stashed away any of her money. If he had, she would fight for it.
Clark, on the other hand, planned to fight for Snooks.

Speaker 4 Until the private investigator's report was included in the affidavit that proved nothing Clark Rockefeller ever told his wife was true. There was no record of a person with that name even existing.

Speaker 4 No proof that his parents died, no employment history, no Yale admissions records, no passport, no credit cards, not even a marriage license with Sandra.

Speaker 4 It had been Clark's job to file the paperwork, but of course he never did it. That was the reason he wanted the Quaker wedding.
Quakerism does not require a formal efficient.

Speaker 4 When faced with his lies, Clark Rockefeller agreed to settle. Sandra could have Snooks and the houses.

Speaker 4 All Clark requested was two cars, the engagement ring, one particular dress, and $800,000 for himself. And so it was settled.

Speaker 4 Sandra boss sold the house and moved Snooks to London, where she had requested to be transferred. Clark stayed behind in Boston.
He lived at the Algonquin Club.

Speaker 4 He was relegated to three supervised visits with his daughter per year.

Speaker 4 Clark's first visit with Snooks took place on the weekend starting July 26, 2008. That Saturday, Clark Rockefeller took seven-year-old Ray to a bookstore.

Speaker 4 They were chaperoned by a court-ordered social worker. Later that afternoon, the trio walked to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox play, but ultimately did not go to the game.

Speaker 4 Clark said they wouldn't release his tickets because he did not have a photo ID.

Speaker 4 The next day began with Clark pushing Snooks on the swings. Then they decided to have some lunch before Sandra picked her up for the flight home.

Speaker 4 At around 12.45 p.m., Clark, his daughter, and the social worker Howard Yaffe walked down Marlborough Street.

Speaker 4 As a black SUV pulled up beside them, Clark pointed out a historic building to Howard, who turned around to see. Clark then shoved Howard in the back, and Howard fell to his knees.

Speaker 4 The door to the SUV swung open. Clark hurriedly pushed Snooks inside and then climbed in behind.
Howard Yaffe tugged on the door handle as the vehicle sped away.

Speaker 4 The social worker lost its grip as Clark Rockefeller and his daughter disappeared down the street. That SUV was being driven by a livery driver named Darryl Hopkins.

Speaker 4 Rockefeller told Hopkins that he planned to take his daughter sailing, but needed to get rid of a clingy family friend. Hopkins had agreed to help for $2,500.

Speaker 19 The door opened.

Speaker 19 There's a clunk, then there's a crying girl in my back seat, and go, go, go. She had really whacked her head, Daddy.
You know, she's just...

Speaker 18 I'm dead.

Speaker 4 As instructed, Darrell Hopkins dropped Clark and Ray off at a convenience store where a cab was waiting.

Speaker 4 Clark said he was going to take Snooks to the hospital to get her head checked out, but in reality, they were headed to the Boston Sailing Center. There, Clark met his friend, Eileen Eng.

Speaker 4 Rockefeller had asked Eileen for a ride to New York to see his new catamaran. She had reluctantly agreed and was surprised to see his daughter, but she decided to give him a ride for a fee.

Speaker 4 Clark rode in the back seat with Snooks for a large portion of the trip. He was lying down.
He said he had a headache.

Speaker 4 When Clark finally joined Eileen in the front of her car, she said he asked to borrow her cell phone and then he turned it off. Clark said it was making him nervous.

Speaker 4 He also refused to let Eileen stop to use the restroom or fill up with gas. Evidently, he was in a hurry.

Speaker 4 When Eileen Ng's car neared Grand Central Station in Manhattan, Clark Rockefeller barely waited for a complete stop before he exited the vehicle.

Speaker 4 He dropped $500 on Eileen's passenger seat and did not even say goodbye. Eileen watched Clark and Snooks disappear among the scores of people.
Then she turned on her phone to find an Amber alert.

Speaker 23 To Boston, she is believed to be in danger and may be traveling with Clark Rockefeller in a black Chevrolet Tahoe or GMC Yukon.

Speaker 4 Eileen's jaw hit the floor. She had been an unwitting accomplice in the kidnapping of a seven-year-old girl.
The other driver, Daryl Hopkins, was receiving the same news.

Speaker 19 All I had to hear was Clark Rockefeller and my world collapsed. Because he had kidnapped his daughter and I was the getaway car.

Speaker 4 Days passed with no sign of Clark Rockefeller or Snooks. Sandra Boss was understandably distraught and hysterical.
She was worried that Clark might hurt their daughter if given no other choice.

Speaker 4 On Thursday, July 31st, 2008, Sandra Boss recorded a public plea for Clark to bring Snooks home.

Speaker 24 Clark,

Speaker 25 although things have changed,

Speaker 25 you will always be Ray's father, and I will always be Ray's mother.

Speaker 25 We both love her dearly and have only her best interests and well-being at heart.

Speaker 25 I ask you now, please, please bring Snooks back.

Speaker 25 There has to be a better way for us to solve our differences than this way.

Speaker 25 I also want to thank everyone for your help.

Speaker 25 And Ray, honey, I love you. I miss you so much.
And remember, you're always a princess.

Speaker 4 Sandra Boss's pleas went unanswered.

Speaker 9 Where is Ray Storo Boss and her mysterious father with the famous name? The FBI is leading a multi-agency search after Clark Rockefeller allegedly abducted the seven-year-old over the weekend.

Speaker 9 On Sunday, Boston police say a social worker was accompanying the 48-year-old Rockefeller on a supervised visit with Ray when the custodial kidnapping occurred.

Speaker 26 Clark Rockefeller, who was carrying his daughter, attempted to put his daughter down between two vehicles when a black SUV pulled up.

Speaker 26 At that time, Rockefeller grabbed his daughter and jumped into the SUV, which was being operated by a white male driver.

Speaker 9 One theory cops are working on is that Rockefeller may try to sail his daughter out of the country on a 72-foot catamaran.

Speaker 9 But officials reportedly now say that could just be a ploy to take them off track.

Speaker 4 The search for Clark Rockefeller and his daughter stretched into a fifth day. There had been no communication from the alleged kidnapper, but tips from the public had trickled in.

Speaker 4 Clark had allegedly told several friends different stories, that he was sailing to Peru or Bermuda. Others said he told them he was going to Alaska.

Speaker 4 There were also reported sightings of Clark Rockefeller in the Caribbean, but they could not be confirmed. Sources said his hair was dyed orange, and Snooks' hair had been cut to look like a boy's.

Speaker 4 A friend of Clark's in Boston had also contacted authorities with an exciting piece of of evidence. Clark had stopped by the friend's house a day before the kidnapping and had a glass of water.

Speaker 4 That glass, the friend said, had yet to be washed. Clark Rockefeller's fingerprints were all over it.
As investigators lifted the prints, a helpful tip came into the station.

Speaker 4 An anonymous quote, concerned citizen, nice, told detectives that she recognized Clark Rockefeller as a man named Chip Smith.

Speaker 4 The tipster, a real estate agent in Baltimore, said Chip Smith was one of her recent customers.

Speaker 4 Chip had told the woman that he was a South America-based sailor who planned to move to Baltimore to build catamarans. He said he would have his daughter Muffy with him.
They'd been at sea for months.

Speaker 4 The real estate agent told detectives that Chip Smith arrived in Baltimore and he was the widest, pastiest sailor she had ever seen.

Speaker 4 He told her he had also appeared in a Backstreet Boys music video for some reason. She acted impressed because she wanted to sell him property.
Chip Smith settled on a condo on Ploy Street.

Speaker 4 It was walking distance to the marina where his boat was docked. Clark Rockefeller did actually own a 26-foot catamaran that was housed in Baltimore.

Speaker 4 He had kept it at the Anchorage Marina for at least nine years. He never sailed it once.
With the new address in hand, the FBI arrived to surveil Chip Smith's building. There was very little activity.

Speaker 4 They saw neither a man nor a child through the windows. If they were home, they were definitely laying low.

Speaker 4 After a few days, the agents devised a ruse to lure him out. They had the marina manager call Chip Smith to tell him that his boat was taking on water.

Speaker 4 The call was made on August 2nd at about 1.30 p.m.

Speaker 4 Two hours later, a lone figure appeared outside the condo's front door. Hey Clark, an FBI agent yelled when the man started walking.
Where are you going?

Speaker 4 I'm going to get a turkey sandwich, the man replied before being placed in handcuffs. A search of the condo found seven-year-old Ray Boss alive and unharmed.

Speaker 4 She was taken into custody and returned to her mother.

Speaker 16 It was in this historic neighborhood where lawmen were putting up crime tapes Saturday that police arrested Clark Rockefeller by luring him out of an apartment.

Speaker 16 The arrest followed a tip from a concerned citizen.

Speaker 7 Good evening.

Speaker 7 We are very happy to report that on behalf of the Boston Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ray Rockefeller, Rockefeller, who has been missing since last Sunday, was located this afternoon in Baltimore, Maryland, and is now being reunited with her mother.

Speaker 7 Investigators initially learned of Clark's whereabouts from a concerned citizen who alerted FBI agents. This individual has requested anonymity.

Speaker 7 At this time, Clark Rockefeller is in FBI custody in Baltimore and facing charges which include felony custodial kidnapping, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Speaker 7 Investigators continue their efforts to determine Clark Rockefeller's true identity.

Speaker 4 While in custody, Clark Rockefeller refused to give investigators any information. He claimed he couldn't remember or didn't want to remember.
I always made a point of forgetting the past, he said.

Speaker 4 Who cares? What's the difference? Who cares who your grandfather was? Why look back to things that may not have been pleasant?

Speaker 24 So before that, who else were you? You were Rock.

Speaker 22 Who else were you? I can't even remember. I couldn't even remember.

Speaker 14 If you had to put a number on how many different names you've used in your lifetime, how many would you say?

Speaker 17 No, Rockefeller is always the big.

Speaker 5 It was always the biggest thing. You get the most bang for your button.

Speaker 10 Yeah, that is always sort of my general name.

Speaker 22 You know, whatever came around.

Speaker 14 Why'd you go by, you said your name is James Clark Rockefeller.

Speaker 22 Well, that's the name,

Speaker 22 You know, it doesn't exist, so

Speaker 22 there is no such person.

Speaker 4 Finally, after nearly five hours of interrogation, Clark Rockefeller admitted that Clark Rockefeller did not exist. Still, he refused to tell the detectives his real name.

Speaker 4 My sincere apologies for the problems I've caused to you. My sincere apologies.
I don't like to cause problems, but I just want to be a father. That's all I want to be.

Speaker 14 Tell me who you are. Well, I'm sick of this bull.
I've been dealing with this all week. Tell me who you are.

Speaker 5 Clark Rockefeller. No, you told me you are not Clark Rockefeller.

Speaker 14 Clark Rockefeller doesn't exist. I'm talking to somebody here, but it's not Clark Rockefeller.

Speaker 22 Tell me who you are. No, that's the best I can do.

Speaker 14 No, that's not the best you can do. I'm Tammy Hardy.
This is Ray Mosier. Those people out there have names.
Everybody else in this country has names. They have Social Security numbers.

Speaker 14 They're not doing this thing with different names. No, this, that, and the other thing.
It's bullshit.

Speaker 25 I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 No, don't be sorry. Tell me who you are.

Speaker 22 This is what I can come up with.

Speaker 14 You gotta do better than that.

Speaker 22 Clark, or whoever you are.

Speaker 14 You be better than that.

Speaker 4 God, I wish I could tell you more, Rockefeller sighed. I just wish I could tell you what you want to know.
I don't have the answer. A few days later, there was no more hiding.

Speaker 4 The results of the fingerprint analysis have returned a positive identification.

Speaker 7 Today, the FBI will confirm the true identity of the individual who has used the aliases Clark Rockefeller, Chris C. Crowe, Chris Chichester, Charles Smith, and Chip Smith, among others.

Speaker 7 The individual's true name is Christian Karl Gerhard Scheider. He was born in 1961 in what was then West Germany.

Speaker 4 Furthermore, Christian Gerhart Schrider's fingerprints also matched the fingerprints found on a stockbroker's application filed in the name of Christopher Chichester.

Speaker 4 The match officially implicated him in the San Marino murders of John and Linda Sohas that had remained unsolved for two decades.

Speaker 4 Back in 1994, several years after Didi Sohas died, new owners of the house where Chris Chichester had lived hired a crew to install a swimming pool.

Speaker 4 While excavating, the crew found a fiberglass box four feet underground. Inside were plastic bags full of fully clothed bones.
It took almost 15 years to identify the bones as belonging to John Sohas.

Speaker 4 The cause of death was ruled as blunt force trauma to the head. Linda Soas was never found.

Speaker 4 Christian Gehartsreider denied any involvement in the couple's disappearance and murder. Instead, he pointed to Linda as the culprit, but offered little proof.
Charges were pending.

Speaker 4 But first, Christian Gehartsreider stood trial for the kidnapping. He had rejected a plea bargain and instead opted to plead insanity.

Speaker 4 According to his defense attorney, Gehartsreider had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, issues of identity, and symptoms of delusion and grandiosity.

Speaker 17 In December of 2007, when he actually had to give up physical custody of his child, it was four days before Christmas. When that happened, that absolutely pushed him over the edge.
And that was

Speaker 17 the beginning of the end in terms of his ability at all to function in a world that we see through the lenses that we look at. At that point, his world became a very, very different world.

Speaker 17 That was very dangerous for his child.

Speaker 17 And again, he was, respectfully, the evidence will show that he felt that what he was doing was right.

Speaker 4 The prosecution dismissed the the notion that Christian Gohartzrider, who went by Clark Rockefeller during the trial, was clinically insane.

Speaker 4 The kidnapping was planned from beginning to end, they said. It was the carefully orchestrated plan of a narcissist.
The jury agreed.

Speaker 28 It took the jury four days to decide if the man known as Clark Rockefeller was crazy or just calculating when he kidnapped his seven-year-old daughter last July.

Speaker 4 On June 12, 2009, Christian Gohartsreider was convicted of parental kidnapping and assault and battery with a deadly weapon, since the social worker was injured by the getaway car.

Speaker 4 He was acquitted of two lesser charges, another count of assault and giving a false name to the police. Christian Gehartsrider was sentenced to four to five years.

Speaker 4 A little less than two years later, he was charged with John Soas' murder. Gehartsrider maintained his innocence.

Speaker 4 He even made media appearances, such as this one on CBS's 48 Hours, to tell his side of the story.

Speaker 29 Did Did you kill John Soats? No.

Speaker 29 Did you kill Linda Soats?

Speaker 27 No, absolutely not. She's around somewhere.

Speaker 29 You believe she's still alive? Absolutely. What makes you believe that she's still alive?

Speaker 21 Well, we had a trace to her, and

Speaker 27 not a very good trace, but nonetheless, a trace to 1987, either North Carolina or Virginia, to a

Speaker 27 horse trainer named Bet Linda B

Speaker 26 L I N D A S C H U S

Speaker 19 the

Speaker 26 a name that if you if you take the if you take the O and you cut off the right part of the O

Speaker 27 it turns it into a C which turns it into the name shuss

Speaker 27 I can't speak for the jury's decision half of them were probably

Speaker 27 too stupid to understand a reasonable doubt the other half were probably too lazy to even think about what's been presented and just wanted to get out of here. This will be overturned.

Speaker 27 Make no mistakes about this. So it's just a minor inconvenience until then.
That's all it is.

Speaker 4 At the murder trial, the prosecution set out to prove that Christian Gehartsrider murdered John and Linda Soas to convince Didi Soas that they had abandoned her so that she would write them out of her will.

Speaker 4 He was successful. When Didi Sowas died in 1988, she left everything to a couple that owned the trailer where she spent her final years.

Speaker 4 Gerhart's writer had conspired with that couple to split the estate if all went as planned. He kept $40,000 as an upfront finder's fee.

Speaker 4 When he returned to San Marino years later to retrieve the rest, that couple told him they had already spent it all.

Speaker 21 The man who called himself Clark Rockefeller has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the slaying of a California man.

Speaker 21 It took a jury five hours over the course of a day to come back with a guilty verdict for Christian Carl Carl Gerhart's Reider.

Speaker 21 Linda Sohas, the stepsister of murder victim John Sohas, cried when she heard the verdict in court today.

Speaker 4 On August 15th, 2013, Christian Gerhart's Reider was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison for the murder of John Sohas. He showed very little emotion at his sentencing hearing.

Speaker 27 Your Honor, I can only say once again

Speaker 27 that I

Speaker 27 want to assert my innocence and that I firmly believe that the victim's wife killed the victim, but be that as it may,

Speaker 27 once again,

Speaker 27 I did not commit the crime of which I stand accused.

Speaker 27 I'm sorry, I'll convict the excuse.

Speaker 4 Christian Gehartsrider remains locked up at San Quentin State Prison. The last time he made a public statement, he said he was planning to file a motion for a new trial.

Speaker 4 in which he would represent himself. Gehartsrider said he would rely on the knowledge he learned in a debate class he took more than 30 years ago.
Nothing but delusions of grandeur remains.

Speaker 4 Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka DeFormer, aka Chip Smith.

Speaker 4 For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Swindled Podcast. Or you can send us a postcard at P.O.

Speaker 4 Box6044, Austin, Texas, 78762. But please, no packages.
We do not trust you.

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That's it. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 My name is Charlotte.

Speaker 15 I'm I'm from England. Hello, this is Angelique from Pemerson, France.
Hello, hi. Our name

Speaker 15 are

Speaker 15 Alex and Devin

Speaker 15 from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And we are concerned citizens.

Speaker 15 And I just love listening to your program.

Speaker 15 Keep it up. Bye-bye.