Rockefeller Saga: Mystery man accused of plagiarism
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
By Nathan McIntire and Frank Girardot, Staff Writers
Article Launched: 08/30/2008 10:53:48 PM PDT
SAN MARINO - The Boston kidnapping suspect linked by authorities to the 1983 disappearance of a local couple appears to have cribbed an article from bestselling author Michael Crichton.
Clark Rockefeller contributed detailed articles on complex subjects to a local newsletter when he lived in New Hampshire in 2004.
At least one of the articles, however, does not appear to have been written by him. In fact, several passages from a 2003 Caltech speech by Crichton were used by Rockefeller without attribution in an article - titled "Smoke and Rearview Mirrors" - that ran in the April 2004 edition of the Cornish, N.H., newsletter Consider This.
Rockefeller's attorney, Stephen Hrones, who attended Harvard with Crichton, said it should come as no surprise that his client fabricated stories.
"There's no doubt he tells some stories," Hrones said. "But people know they are so far-fetched. You know a lot of people are great storytellers - what does that make him? There's no crime in spinning yarns."
• Special Section: San Marino Murder Mystery
Of course, Rockefeller is not really Rockefeller.
According to authorities, he is actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, and he remains in custody in Boston, accused of parental abduction after he disappeared with his daughter, Reigh "Snooks" Boss, during a supervised custody visit in late July.
He has also been named as a person of interest in the missing persons and homicide cases of Linda and John Sohus, who disappeared in 1985 from their San Marino home.
Gerhartsreiter aka Rockefeller lived in the guest house of their Lorain Road property in the mid-1980s, vanishing a couple of months after they did.
Back then, he called himself Christopher Chichester.
The writer
In the early 2000s, as Rockefeller, he lived for a time in Cornish, N.H., with his wife, Sandra Boss.
Janice Orion, the editor of the town newsletter, said Rockefeller contributed several "idiosyncratic" articles to the newsletter.
"I think he rather fancied himself as a writer," Orion said.
Or not.
Several passages and phrases from Rockefeller's article are copied almost word-for-word, sometimes with a few slight alterations.
While commenting on the specialized subject of consensus-based scientific research and the obscure concept of nuclear winter, he wrote:
"At a conference on the subject in Washington, during the question period, someone reminded (Paul) Ehrlich that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists said nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons grew there the next year."
Crichton's speech included this paragraph:
"At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons grew there the next year."
The article also follows the same pattern and chronology as Crichton's speech, reaching the same conclusions.
"I can guarantee you he did not give permission," said Crichton's press agent, Joe Marich.
Orion said she was unaware that some of Rockefeller's work was plagiarized.
"Nobody here would have even considered that," she said. "It probably wouldn't even have crossed their mind that he copied someone else."
Overall, Orion said, she was not impressed with Rockefeller's work.
"I think he would have had to do a lot of study to become a writer," she said. "His style wasn't particularly good. His ideas were a bit odd, not very artistic."
The suspect
Hrones said that while his client knew the Sohuses, he had nothing to do with their disappearance.
In 1994, contractors discovered human bones buried in the backyard of the Lorain Road house where the Sohuses lived. Authorities believe they are the remains of John Sohus.
On Friday, detectives began a re-examination of the property. The search ended Saturday morning with officials tight-lipped on whether anything was recovered.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore described the search as "productive."
After he disappeared from San Marino, Rockefeller/Gerhartsreiter turned up in Greenwich, Conn. in the late 1980s using the name Christopher Crowe. He was found driving a truck that police later determined belonged to John Sohus.
Since his arrest, Rockefeller has refused to speak with Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators pursuing the Sohus case, but in other interviews, he and his attorney have said his memories of the past are spotty.
On "The Today Show" last week, he said he only remembered certain things from his childhood, like visiting Mount Rushmore and picking strawberries in Oregon.
Asked "What about your parents, what about your family?" Rockefeller responded, "Not much of a clear memory on that."
Hrones, who refers to his client as Rockefeller, said in the same interview that he "doesn't remember anything about that early life."
In an interview with this newspaper, Hrones said Rockefeller has "memories going back to 1984. And, bits and pieces going back further."
Some of the articles written by Rockefeller, however, refer to family members in ways that contradict his current claims of memory loss.
In an essay he submitted to the newsletter, where he attempts to link the prevalence of Attention Deficit Disorder in children to over-exposure to television, he writes:
"I have a cousin who at age twelve received a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder." Later he wrote that his family has never owned a television.
"Neither my parents nor I have ever owned one and I have never needed or wanted to own one," he writes.
In an April 2002 article in Consider This about an obscure antique book called the "Voynich Manuscript," Rockefeller said he remembered being harangued by a librarian more than 25 years ago.
"`Why do you always check out this one?' I remember a librarian asking me a quarter century ago," he wrote.
Reference materials relating to the "Voynich Manuscript" are held at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Clues to the past
Rockefeller's Cornish writings may also provide other insights.
In the "Voynich Manuscript" article he attributes his interest in the mysterious book to a former professor.
In another article written in January 2004, about the use of ionic liquids for dry cleaning, he claims he discovered a "green" cleaning product.
"While working to devise a fuel for an ion drive for space vehicles, we accidentally invented some new fluids that worked extremely well for dry cleaning," he wrote.
In that article, he lifted at least one sentence from the Web page of the London-based Hunt Research Group, a company that specializes in ionic liquid applications, including the manufacture of biofuels and solvents.
A man he identified in the article as Arturo Garibaldi, a Brooklyn, N.Y., dry cleaner also appears to be fictitious. A search of public records revealed no Arturo Garibaldi in Brooklyn.
Rockefeller even shows a caustic side in a book review he submitted to the newsletter.
Orion said the piece is a review of an autobiography by the daughter of famed Cornish resident J.D. Salinger. Rockefeller calls the author's writing "like the ramblings of a psychiatric patient reclining on Freud's sofa."
He says the book "amounts to little more than a kid airing her grievances about her family, particularly her father." One section is attacked as "little more than trivia," another as "the height of academic pretentiousness."
He urges Cornish residents to disregard the opinions of the author.
"They came from the pen of a more-than-slightly unhinged Nobody," he writes.
Hrones said Rockefeller continues to write and is working on a book while in jail.
"He's doing a book on the Versailles Peace Conference," Hrones said.
The inmate is reading too. Books he has asked for include "Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World," a book described by Hrones as "something like the `New Rules of Baseball,"' as well as a "Star Wars" book.
"He's a renaissance man," Hrones said. "He's very knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects, including physics."
nathan.mcintire@sgvn.com
frank.girardot@sgvn.com
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4475
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2717
COMMENTS:
This Plagerising Article Written By Nathan McIntire and Frank Girardot Kind Of Reminds Me Of Some Actions Recently Taken By Blog Used By The Former Greenwich Time Editor And Employees:
Please see:
08/30/08 Greenwich Roundup Is Calling Off The Lawyers
MORE INFORMATION ON THE PLAGERISING FORMER GREENWICH RESIDENT THAT IS OFTEN REFERED TO AS "CROCKAFELLAH".
http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime/2008/08/a-minute-with-clark-rockefelle.html
Please See:
08/17/08 How impostors like former Greenwich resident Clark Rockefeller capture our trust instantly - and why we are so eager to give it to them
08/16/08 Crockeffelah Lawyer Says Former Local Resident Is Not Guilty Of Kidnapping, Because Marriage Was Invalid
08/15/08 FBI confirms former Greenwich Resident's Identity
08/15/08 This Former Greenwich Resident Is Really Creepy
Here Is More Information:
08/14/08 WAKE UP GREENWICH TIME!!!
Where is the coverage?
Grenwich Time Reporters Are Out To Lunch
PLEASE ALSO SEE:
Clark "I Used To Live In Greenwich" Rockefeller
admits California ID
Clark Rockefeller driver says he was fooled by
former Greenwich Resident
California detectives plan to query the former
Greenwich resident known as,
Christian Gerhartsreiter, again
It's Not That The Greenwich Time Reporters Are Too Lazy To Go Out And Cover The Story
It's That They Just Don't Give A Damn
Remember how the Greenwich Time sat on the Martha Moxley Murder Mystery story and Los Angeles Detective Mark Furman had to come in a write a book called Murder In Greenwich
PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THESE GREENWICH ROUNDUP POSTS:
08/06/08 Did The Greenwich Police Department Question Clarke Rockeffeller Then Let Him Go Free
08/08/08 Is Frank Girardot Is Wondering Why The Lazy Greenwich Time Reporters Have Not Called Him Asking About The Fake Rockefeller
08/10/98 The Greenwich Time Won't Cover This Story On Their So-Called "News Website" So We Will Havee To Bring It To You.
Creepy con man Clark Rockefeller posed as the long-lost brother of serial killer David Berkowitz, Also Known As, The Son Of Sam Killer, and tried to use the Son of Sam's Social Security number to get his Wall Street broker's license.
The fake Rockefeller - born Christian Gerhartsreiter in Germany and jailed for allegedly kidnapping his daughter, "Snooks" - called the killer's lawyer around 1985 claiming to need information to confirm that Berkowitz, who was adopted, was the sibling he never knew, the lawyer said.
"He said that he'd been abandoned by his family, too," said lawyer Mark Jay Heller, who is convinced that the caller was Gerhartsreiter.
Heller refused the caller's request for a Social Security number, but the bizarre Bavarian appears to have gotten it anyway.
A former colleague said the faker got his first finance job in 1985, with venture capitalist Stanford Phelps in Greenwich, Conn., using the name Christopher Crowe.
Phelps fired him within a year after learning from the National Association of Securities Dealers that he had used the Social Security number of David Berkowitz, said the ex-colleague.
When Gerhartsreiter got a job at Nikko on Wall Street, Phelps called, and again "Crowe" was fired, the trader said.
Rockefeller's lawyer, Stephen Hrones, said his client doesn't have a memory of using Berkowitz's ID.
At his next job, at Kidder-Peabody, Gerhartsreiter "went into his manager's office saying his parents had been kidnapped in South America and he needed to go down there to pay a ransom," the trader said.
The next day, FBI agents showed up at Nikko, looking for "Crowe," Barnett and the trader said.
They wanted to question him about a truck he was driving in Connecticut that was owned by John Sohus, his ex-landlord, who'd vanished with his wife, Linda, from their San Marino, Calif., home four years earlier.
They never found "Crowe" or the truck, but in 1994 contractors digging a pool at the home unearthed three plastic bags containing a hacked-up male skeleton, according to the LA County Sheriff's Office.
HERE IS EVEN MORE INFORMATION:
The Suspect Known as Clark Rockefeller on Wall Street
Universal Hub
Dave Copeland, who knows something about criminals and New York,
makes some calls to learn about "Rockefeller's" less than illustrious career on Wall Street back in the Gordon Gekko days:
... But after two days at Lehman, Rockefeller told his supervisors that he needed to take time off to search for his parents, who he said had gone missing in Afghanistan. Sources said Rockefeller – who told co-workers at Nikko he was film director Christoher Crowe – was dismissed by Lehman.
Rockefeller even invited co-workers to the Greenwich, Conn. guest house he was renting for screenings of “his” movies. Rockefeller claimed he was living in the guest house because his own home was being renovated, a claim that co-workers assumed was one of his tall tales.
Within days of his dismissal from Lehman, Connecticut State Police detectives arrived at the offices of both Lehman and Nikko looking to question Rockefeller. ...
One guess what they might have wanted to question him about. Yep.
AND EVEN MORE INFORMATION:
08/01/08 The Fake Rockefeller Has A Greenwich Connection In Doctor Hedi Leistner
================================================
Please send your comments and any iformation you have on this former Greenwich resident to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
By Nathan McIntire and Frank Girardot, Staff Writers
Article Launched: 08/30/2008 10:53:48 PM PDT
SAN MARINO - The Boston kidnapping suspect linked by authorities to the 1983 disappearance of a local couple appears to have cribbed an article from bestselling author Michael Crichton.
Clark Rockefeller contributed detailed articles on complex subjects to a local newsletter when he lived in New Hampshire in 2004.
At least one of the articles, however, does not appear to have been written by him. In fact, several passages from a 2003 Caltech speech by Crichton were used by Rockefeller without attribution in an article - titled "Smoke and Rearview Mirrors" - that ran in the April 2004 edition of the Cornish, N.H., newsletter Consider This.
Rockefeller's attorney, Stephen Hrones, who attended Harvard with Crichton, said it should come as no surprise that his client fabricated stories.
"There's no doubt he tells some stories," Hrones said. "But people know they are so far-fetched. You know a lot of people are great storytellers - what does that make him? There's no crime in spinning yarns."
• Special Section: San Marino Murder Mystery
Of course, Rockefeller is not really Rockefeller.
According to authorities, he is actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, and he remains in custody in Boston, accused of parental abduction after he disappeared with his daughter, Reigh "Snooks" Boss, during a supervised custody visit in late July.
He has also been named as a person of interest in the missing persons and homicide cases of Linda and John Sohus, who disappeared in 1985 from their San Marino home.
Gerhartsreiter aka Rockefeller lived in the guest house of their Lorain Road property in the mid-1980s, vanishing a couple of months after they did.
Back then, he called himself Christopher Chichester.
The writer
In the early 2000s, as Rockefeller, he lived for a time in Cornish, N.H., with his wife, Sandra Boss.
Janice Orion, the editor of the town newsletter, said Rockefeller contributed several "idiosyncratic" articles to the newsletter.
"I think he rather fancied himself as a writer," Orion said.
Or not.
Several passages and phrases from Rockefeller's article are copied almost word-for-word, sometimes with a few slight alterations.
While commenting on the specialized subject of consensus-based scientific research and the obscure concept of nuclear winter, he wrote:
"At a conference on the subject in Washington, during the question period, someone reminded (Paul) Ehrlich that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists said nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons grew there the next year."
Crichton's speech included this paragraph:
"At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons grew there the next year."
The article also follows the same pattern and chronology as Crichton's speech, reaching the same conclusions.
"I can guarantee you he did not give permission," said Crichton's press agent, Joe Marich.
Orion said she was unaware that some of Rockefeller's work was plagiarized.
"Nobody here would have even considered that," she said. "It probably wouldn't even have crossed their mind that he copied someone else."
Overall, Orion said, she was not impressed with Rockefeller's work.
"I think he would have had to do a lot of study to become a writer," she said. "His style wasn't particularly good. His ideas were a bit odd, not very artistic."
The suspect
Hrones said that while his client knew the Sohuses, he had nothing to do with their disappearance.
In 1994, contractors discovered human bones buried in the backyard of the Lorain Road house where the Sohuses lived. Authorities believe they are the remains of John Sohus.
On Friday, detectives began a re-examination of the property. The search ended Saturday morning with officials tight-lipped on whether anything was recovered.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore described the search as "productive."
After he disappeared from San Marino, Rockefeller/Gerhartsreiter turned up in Greenwich, Conn. in the late 1980s using the name Christopher Crowe. He was found driving a truck that police later determined belonged to John Sohus.
Since his arrest, Rockefeller has refused to speak with Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators pursuing the Sohus case, but in other interviews, he and his attorney have said his memories of the past are spotty.
On "The Today Show" last week, he said he only remembered certain things from his childhood, like visiting Mount Rushmore and picking strawberries in Oregon.
Asked "What about your parents, what about your family?" Rockefeller responded, "Not much of a clear memory on that."
Hrones, who refers to his client as Rockefeller, said in the same interview that he "doesn't remember anything about that early life."
In an interview with this newspaper, Hrones said Rockefeller has "memories going back to 1984. And, bits and pieces going back further."
Some of the articles written by Rockefeller, however, refer to family members in ways that contradict his current claims of memory loss.
In an essay he submitted to the newsletter, where he attempts to link the prevalence of Attention Deficit Disorder in children to over-exposure to television, he writes:
"I have a cousin who at age twelve received a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder." Later he wrote that his family has never owned a television.
"Neither my parents nor I have ever owned one and I have never needed or wanted to own one," he writes.
In an April 2002 article in Consider This about an obscure antique book called the "Voynich Manuscript," Rockefeller said he remembered being harangued by a librarian more than 25 years ago.
"`Why do you always check out this one?' I remember a librarian asking me a quarter century ago," he wrote.
Reference materials relating to the "Voynich Manuscript" are held at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Clues to the past
Rockefeller's Cornish writings may also provide other insights.
In the "Voynich Manuscript" article he attributes his interest in the mysterious book to a former professor.
In another article written in January 2004, about the use of ionic liquids for dry cleaning, he claims he discovered a "green" cleaning product.
"While working to devise a fuel for an ion drive for space vehicles, we accidentally invented some new fluids that worked extremely well for dry cleaning," he wrote.
In that article, he lifted at least one sentence from the Web page of the London-based Hunt Research Group, a company that specializes in ionic liquid applications, including the manufacture of biofuels and solvents.
A man he identified in the article as Arturo Garibaldi, a Brooklyn, N.Y., dry cleaner also appears to be fictitious. A search of public records revealed no Arturo Garibaldi in Brooklyn.
Rockefeller even shows a caustic side in a book review he submitted to the newsletter.
Orion said the piece is a review of an autobiography by the daughter of famed Cornish resident J.D. Salinger. Rockefeller calls the author's writing "like the ramblings of a psychiatric patient reclining on Freud's sofa."
He says the book "amounts to little more than a kid airing her grievances about her family, particularly her father." One section is attacked as "little more than trivia," another as "the height of academic pretentiousness."
He urges Cornish residents to disregard the opinions of the author.
"They came from the pen of a more-than-slightly unhinged Nobody," he writes.
Hrones said Rockefeller continues to write and is working on a book while in jail.
"He's doing a book on the Versailles Peace Conference," Hrones said.
The inmate is reading too. Books he has asked for include "Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World," a book described by Hrones as "something like the `New Rules of Baseball,"' as well as a "Star Wars" book.
"He's a renaissance man," Hrones said. "He's very knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects, including physics."
nathan.mcintire@sgvn.com
frank.girardot@sgvn.com
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4475
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2717
COMMENTS:
This Plagerising Article Written By Nathan McIntire and Frank Girardot Kind Of Reminds Me Of Some Actions Recently Taken By Blog Used By The Former Greenwich Time Editor And Employees:
Please see:
08/30/08 Greenwich Roundup Is Calling Off The Lawyers
MORE INFORMATION ON THE PLAGERISING FORMER GREENWICH RESIDENT THAT IS OFTEN REFERED TO AS "CROCKAFELLAH".
WAKE UP, Greenwich Time!
Hearst Media Executives And Greenwich Time Editors Should Follow This Link To See How A "Real Crime Reporter" Covers The Local Angle On A Nationwide Crime Story.....
http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime/2008/08/a-minute-with-clark-rockefelle.html
Please See:
08/17/08 How impostors like former Greenwich resident Clark Rockefeller capture our trust instantly - and why we are so eager to give it to them
08/16/08 Crockeffelah Lawyer Says Former Local Resident Is Not Guilty Of Kidnapping, Because Marriage Was Invalid
08/15/08 FBI confirms former Greenwich Resident's Identity
08/15/08 This Former Greenwich Resident Is Really Creepy
Here Is More Information:
08/14/08 WAKE UP GREENWICH TIME!!!
Where is the coverage?
Grenwich Time Reporters Are Out To Lunch
PLEASE ALSO SEE:
Clark "I Used To Live In Greenwich" Rockefeller
admits California ID
Clark Rockefeller driver says he was fooled by
former Greenwich Resident
California detectives plan to query the former
Greenwich resident known as,
Christian Gerhartsreiter, again
It's Not That The Greenwich Time Reporters Are Too Lazy To Go Out And Cover The Story
It's That They Just Don't Give A Damn
Remember how the Greenwich Time sat on the Martha Moxley Murder Mystery story and Los Angeles Detective Mark Furman had to come in a write a book called Murder In Greenwich
PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THESE GREENWICH ROUNDUP POSTS:
08/06/08 Did The Greenwich Police Department Question Clarke Rockeffeller Then Let Him Go Free
08/08/08 Is Frank Girardot Is Wondering Why The Lazy Greenwich Time Reporters Have Not Called Him Asking About The Fake Rockefeller
08/10/98 The Greenwich Time Won't Cover This Story On Their So-Called "News Website" So We Will Havee To Bring It To You.
Creepy con man Clark Rockefeller posed as the long-lost brother of serial killer David Berkowitz, Also Known As, The Son Of Sam Killer, and tried to use the Son of Sam's Social Security number to get his Wall Street broker's license.
The fake Rockefeller - born Christian Gerhartsreiter in Germany and jailed for allegedly kidnapping his daughter, "Snooks" - called the killer's lawyer around 1985 claiming to need information to confirm that Berkowitz, who was adopted, was the sibling he never knew, the lawyer said.
"He said that he'd been abandoned by his family, too," said lawyer Mark Jay Heller, who is convinced that the caller was Gerhartsreiter.
Heller refused the caller's request for a Social Security number, but the bizarre Bavarian appears to have gotten it anyway.
A former colleague said the faker got his first finance job in 1985, with venture capitalist Stanford Phelps in Greenwich, Conn., using the name Christopher Crowe.
Phelps fired him within a year after learning from the National Association of Securities Dealers that he had used the Social Security number of David Berkowitz, said the ex-colleague.
When Gerhartsreiter got a job at Nikko on Wall Street, Phelps called, and again "Crowe" was fired, the trader said.
Rockefeller's lawyer, Stephen Hrones, said his client doesn't have a memory of using Berkowitz's ID.
At his next job, at Kidder-Peabody, Gerhartsreiter "went into his manager's office saying his parents had been kidnapped in South America and he needed to go down there to pay a ransom," the trader said.
The next day, FBI agents showed up at Nikko, looking for "Crowe," Barnett and the trader said.
They wanted to question him about a truck he was driving in Connecticut that was owned by John Sohus, his ex-landlord, who'd vanished with his wife, Linda, from their San Marino, Calif., home four years earlier.
They never found "Crowe" or the truck, but in 1994 contractors digging a pool at the home unearthed three plastic bags containing a hacked-up male skeleton, according to the LA County Sheriff's Office.
HERE IS EVEN MORE INFORMATION:
The Suspect Known as Clark Rockefeller on Wall Street
Universal Hub
Dave Copeland, who knows something about criminals and New York,
makes some calls to learn about "Rockefeller's" less than illustrious career on Wall Street back in the Gordon Gekko days:
... But after two days at Lehman, Rockefeller told his supervisors that he needed to take time off to search for his parents, who he said had gone missing in Afghanistan. Sources said Rockefeller – who told co-workers at Nikko he was film director Christoher Crowe – was dismissed by Lehman.
Rockefeller even invited co-workers to the Greenwich, Conn. guest house he was renting for screenings of “his” movies. Rockefeller claimed he was living in the guest house because his own home was being renovated, a claim that co-workers assumed was one of his tall tales.
Within days of his dismissal from Lehman, Connecticut State Police detectives arrived at the offices of both Lehman and Nikko looking to question Rockefeller. ...
One guess what they might have wanted to question him about. Yep.
AND EVEN MORE INFORMATION:
08/01/08 The Fake Rockefeller Has A Greenwich Connection In Doctor Hedi Leistner
================================================
Please send your comments and any iformation you have on this former Greenwich resident to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com
