Hyper Local News Pages

Sunday, August 31, 2008

08/31/08 You Wont Read About This Former Greenwich Resident And Mystery Man In The Greenwich Time




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".

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

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Please send your comments and any iformation you have on this former Greenwich resident to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com

08/31/08 Greenwich Real Estate News: Chuck Prince Says,"I Wished I Had Been Reading For What It's Worth"


Why Didn't Prudential Connecticut Realty Warn Chuck That The Price Of Single-Family Homes Were Headed For A Big Fall, Instead Of Joining The Rest Of The Real Estate Flock, AndeTelling Everyone That Greenwich Homes Were Immune From The Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis?
Can Anyone Recall A Prudential Commecticut Realty Publicly Going Against The Other Agencies Like Coldwell Banker, And Warning Greenwich Home Sellers That High End Homes Were Going To Be Discounted.


Chris Fountain Is Enjoying His Holiday, But We Are Sure This Story Will Be Featured On For What It's Worth When Chris Comes Back Tan Rested And Ready.


Perhaps Mr. Fountain Should Tag This Story As "Hey Greenwich Post Publisher, I Hate To Say I Told You So, But I Told You So"


Poor Chuck: First He Looses That Big Fat Citibank Job And Then Prudential Connecticut Realty Sells His House At 15% Discount.



Houston Chronicle

bedroom Greenwich, Conn., home for $5.2 million, 15 percent less than his original asking price.

The property closed this month after a contract was signed in July, according to a sales listing document. It was on the market for 186 days. Prince first sought $6.15 million and later reduced the house to $5.85 million. The buyer wasn't disclosed.

The Tudor-style house includes 2.34 acres, a sauna, gym, six bathrooms and a heated swimming pool. It was built in 1987 and renovated in 1996, according to the listing. The house sits in one of the most sought-after New York City suburbs, a town of 61,000 that serves as headquarters to more than 100 hedge funds.

The median price of a single-family house there fell 2 percent in June to $1.95 million, according to Prudential Connecticut Realty.

"This house is in a great location and is in very good condition," said John W. Cooke, an agent with Prudential Connecticut Realty in Greenwich. "Overall, it is a very desirable home."

"Houses that are priced right will sell in any market, good ones or slow ones," Cooke said.

Prince stepped down as head of Citibank in November as the company prepared to announce the biggest loss in its 196-history. Surging defaults on home loans forced it to write down the value of subprime mortgages and related securities by $18 billion at the time.

His one-time mentor at Citigroup, former Chairman Sanford Weill, has a home in Greenwich less than a 10-minute drive from Prince's former house.

Comment:

15% Of 6.15 Million Is......

I Am Sorry I Can't Count That High
REAL ESTATE UPDATE: 09/01/08

I didn't say it, Barrons did.Realogy, parent company of Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's, continues to scare the financial press.
In Barron's words, Look out Below!
================================================
Please send your coments, news tips, press releases and real estate news reports to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com

08/31/08 The Raw Weekend Greenwich News Feed


Alan Gunzburg and his guide dog, Fia, prepares to cross Palmer Hill Road in front of North Mianus School.

(Bob Luckey Jr./Greenwich Time photo)




Greenwich Time


By Meredith Blake

Staff Writer


When lifelong Greenwich resident Carol Kana, 54, began to rely on a mobility scooter a few years ago, she realized that ensuring access for the handicapped to town sidewalks, roads and parking spaces had been overlooked

Looking around, Kana, who has post-polio syndrome and wears leg braces, was surprised at how few sidewalks were outfitted with curb cuts to ease wheelchair access, and how little handicapped parking was provided in Greenwich.

"Everything was so much of a hassle," she said.

So she met with First Selectman Peter Tesei to see what could be done.
"I've lived in Greenwich my whole life and we needed a change," she said, "We're really in the backyard on these issues."

Kana, Allan Gunzburg, who is visually impaired, and others from the Southwestern Connecticut Regional Disability Advocacy Council, met with Tesei to discuss the issues they face each day, like the lack of audible crosswalks, which provide a recorded message or beep to cue pedestrians, and lack of access for the disabled to businesses. The group decided to form the Greenwich Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities.

"The whole intent is to have a group be available to provide input on issues," said Tesei. "Everybody should feel like they have a voice." ...


Skakel Conviction - PR push for review heats up

Point of Law, NY

It's six years after the Michael Skakel conviction for the 1975 Greenwich, Connecticut murder of Martha Moxley. There have been a number of rejected appeals ...


Orphans get a funding boost for college



Hartford Courant



... vice president of his class. And now he is the recipient of the first full-time scholarship available through the Greenwich-based Stewardship Foundation, which provides college funding to orphans and young adults from foster care families. He will ...

Bruce enlists residents to track monarch butterflies




Greenwich Time


Traipsing through the butterfly garden at Greenwich Point, Pavel Bure, 12, armed with a net, was hot on the trail of a monarch butterfly.


Simmons Thriving In New Role



The Day

... says he's got a good relationship with the myriad government agencies that can help, not hinder, businesses from Greenwich to Gales Ferry. But finding out which programs can help, where the agencies are located and, quite simply, how to be properly ...

Greenwich Diva

Is Sarah Palin Trig’s mother or grandmother?

This story was sent to me and it’s all over the internet. I am not sure if there is any truth to it, but it’s a question that many Alaskans have been asking for sometime now. Claudette

Bristol Palin Pregnancy: Is Sarah Palin’s Baby Really Her Daughter’s? (Photos).......



Greenwich takes a back seat at convention

Greenwich Time

With no one named Bush on the ticket this year and three of the six delegates that represented the town at the last major party gathering serving abroad as....

Rob "WGCH" Adam's xit 55 Blog

Not Again!

Certain stories grip me, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was one of them. I sat riveted watching what was going on, partially because I had been to NOLA twice - first in 1975, then in 2003 (I've since been back - in early 2006), but also because my niece (who was eight months pregnant at the time) and her husband lived there.

As Hurricane Gustav gets ready to pound the Crescent City again, let us remember what happened in 2005 (and this is not the time to break it all down again), and think good thoughts about the good people there....

Nonprofit group helps students with science

Greenwich Time

By Meredith Blake
Staff writer

When Rebecca Schreff, 15, signed her name on the back of a piece of paper, little did she know she would be invited on an all-expenses paid science trip that would both inspire and amaze her.

RSC Equipment Rental weathers times

Arizona Republic

... publicly traded company has become the second-largest equipment renter in North America, after United Rentals, a Greenwich, Conn., company with about 700 stores. Olsson says his company is the leader when it comes to growth and profitability. The ...

Homeowners struggle to find best way to pay for heating oil

Stamford Advocate

Some Stamford residents in the 06905 ZIP code formed a buying group that has agreed to purchase their oil from New England Oil Co. in Greenwich. ...

Greenwich Forum

CBS to air key evidence in Skakel appeal - Greenwich Time

Comment, last updated on Sunday Aug 31 by Trollinginconnecticut

Too late for charges in N.Y. oil br.....

Observer

... with a lower court that the deadline to reinstate most of the dismissed charges against Frederic Bourke Jr. of Greenwich, Conn., had passed. The ruling did not immediately effect related charges pending against investment promoter Viktor Kozeny, an ...

Former Brooklyn Dodger Mike Sandlock still strong on the golf course at age 92

Greenwich Time

It's hard to find anyone more inspiring than Mike Sandlock.

Sandlock has quite the zest for life, he has had quite a long and quality of life, and he has that honest attitude that every day is a bonus day to be lived to its fullest.

Sandlock, 92, who happens to be one of the oldest surviving baseball players from the Major Leagues, still plays golf twice a week and amazes everyone with the continued quality of his game.

"He's amazing," Walt Hackett said. "That guy can still hit it a ton."

Hackett, Fred Whelan and Jim Murphy often play golf with Sandlock.

"He can still play," Whelan said. "He can chip and putt very well and he can still hit it 200 yards. He's got artificial knees, he's had a hip replacement. He's one of these guys that when you play against him he's got to par the hole. From his baseball days he's a competitor. He reaches into his bag for whatever he needs."

Sandlock usually plays nine holes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Innis Arden Golf Club in Old Greenwich. ....

Poverty figures remain troubling

Greenwich Time

Connecticut can take comfort in knowing that its efforts have made it one of only five states in which the number of citizens without health insurance significantly decreased in the past two years.....

....That's certainly true of Greenwich, for which the Census Bureau did not compile statistics. For all of its incredible wealth, hundreds upon hundreds of kids in Greenwich schools qualify for free or subsidized meals and snacks under government programs. It must not be easy to be a Greenwich High School student whose family struggles to barely make ends meet and who sits in class next to a kid who drove a shiny new car to school. ...

...The state hasn't been as successful in fulfilling its 2004 avowed goal of reducing child poverty by 50 percent by 2014, even if it is considered to have one of the lowest child poverty levels among U.S. states.

The Census Bureau data show that the number of people living below the federal poverty level ($21,027 for a two-parent household with two children) in Connecticut dropped a negligible 0.4 percent to 7.9 percent from 2006 to 2007.

However, social service advocates make a strong point in arguing that in Connecticut, with its high cost of living atop today's escalating prices, families need to be earning double the poverty level just to break even.

In our communities, even more. ......

Local coach has imparted love, respect for sports

To the Greenwich Time editor:

Scott Kindberg's column on Aug, 22 about Babe Ruth manager Joe Rogers captured the true spirit of a man completely dedicated to teaching a love of sports and sportsmanship to our children.

My son, Michael, will begin his freshman year in college this week. I sit here reminiscing about the many years Mr. Rogers coached him.

Under Joe's tutelage, Michael played on several town baseball teams and called him "Coach" many times over his 10-year career in the Greenwich Blues hockey program. As parents, we were incredibly lucky to have a coach so enthusiastic, positive and knowledgeable at the helm. He's a fantastic athlete and imparts his passion to every sport he coaches.

Coaching youth sports is a priority for Joe, yet he still has time available to coach a women's ice hockey team (the Stamford Stampede) on which I, along with 16 other women, play. He's been on the ice with us since we laced up our skates 10 years ago. He has taught us so much; always with support, encouragement and laughter. We've come a long way thanks to JoeRogers.

I could not have asked for a better teacher and friend for myself or my son.

Rita Karp
Riverside



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Please send your comments, news tips and press releases to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com