Christopher Rocancourt
|
|
Christopher Rocancourt (1967?) is a French-born impostor who defrauded celebrities in Hollywood and masqueraded as a Rockefeller.
In the US West Coast he pretended to be a movie producer, boxing champion or venture capitalist. In the US East coast he claimed he was part of French branch of the Rockefeller family. He dropped names like ("his mother") Sophia Loren or ("his uncles") Oscar de la Renta and Dino de Laurentis and was associated with various celebrities. He even managed to marry a Filipino Playboy model Pía Reyes and lived for a time with Mickey Rourke.
He traveled under aliases like James Fox, Christopher Reyes and Fabian Ortuno. He courted the rich and powerful to make them part of his investment schemes - which were actually scams; He simply walked away with their money. In the end he was a target of various warrants from the both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1997 LA police raided Rocancourt's Bevelry Wilshire Hotel suite. In 1998 he was arrested in Los Angeles for an involvement in a shootout and jumped bail. In 1999 he was freed of charges of forging passports in Los Angeles; he had bribed State Department employees to get a US passport. He was arrested in 2000 in Hamptons, Long Island for an unpaid hotel bill of $19.000; He jumped bail of $45.000 his lawyer had paid. In April 27 2001 he was eventually arrested for good in Oak Bay, British Columbia, Canada.
In a Canadian prison he wrote an autobiography in which he effectively ridicules his victims. In March 2002 he was extradited from Canada to New York.
In May 2002 Rocancourt pled guilty to three of eleven different charges including theft, grand larceny, smuggling, bribery and perjury. He was accused of defrauding total of 19 people. He admitted three counts of fraud to avoid the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. He also received fines of $9 million and restitution worth $1.5 million. In Switzerland, the police have connected him with a jewel theft and barred him from the country until 2016.