Clark
Rockefeller, the divorced father who kidnapped his 7-year-old daughter
during a scheduled parental visit, was in a Baltimore courtroom this morning.
Curious about what he was wearing? Me neither, but the Boston Herald
tell us that he was "shackled at the legs and wearing a Lacoste shirt,
khaki pants and loafers," which the reporter describes as "preppy."
What's
unclear at the moment is just who this guy is. Baltimore prosecuting
attorney Patricia Deros told the press that Rockefeller "looks like
Woody Allen" (objection, counselor – relevance?), and also that they
don't have a name for him other than Clark Rockefeller. Apparently he's
quite wealthy, and has been described as a "fake Rockefeller," or, as
the Daily News put it, Crockefeller. (Which really should be somebody's
rap name, but that's a different topic.) I'm not clear on how it is
that he's not a real Rockefeller but just uses the name, or if he's an
unrelated Rockefeller (which, in my opinion, would sort of suck because
then everyone would always expect you to pick up the tab, even though
you're not really that rich.) The Boston Herald says that the allegedly
kidnapping pop has "no passport or driver’s license and police have
struggled to piece together his life prior to the early 1990s, before
he married Boss." What I find odd is that the ex-wife hasn't provided
police with more information, although of course it's possible that she
did and we haven't heard about.
If you missed it, the basic
details of the case appear to be that Clark Rockefeller was married to
a woman named Sandra Boss, with whom he fathered a daughter named
Reigh, although they called her "Snooks." They got divorced, Boss won
full custody and moved to London. On a scheduled – and supervised –
visit to Boston, the father jumped into
a moving SUV with Red Sox stickers on the back (no comment). The social
worker that was supervising the visit hung onto the vehicle as it
pulled away. The drivers of the SUV were duped
into helping him (I would say that this must have been easy because
they were Red Sox fans, but that's going too far). In one of those
details that you file under "if you wrote this in a script no one would
believe it", he had purchased a house on Ploy Street in preparation for
living under the name Chip Smith.
Anyway, he's been caught, and as far as I can tell the little girl is OK. If you want a timeline of articles about this case, click here. It's a weird story, and at least he's in custody.
image: NY Daily News
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