Mugshots: Chris Rocancourt - A French Con | Forensic Files

there was something about him there was something very intriguing about him and something very likable in a strange kind
of way he would make the scene he infiltrated uh you know the movie world he was hanging out with Mickey
roor in La he is the son of a big producer like the lenes in the Hampton he's Rockefeller he knows very well what
people want his typical game or his scheme that he plays is definitely a different level than anything else I've
ever dealt with he's is a cold ruthless hardened criminal all he wants is is the
money the FBI is looking for him the District Attorney's Office in La is looking for him the NYPD the East
Hampton PD everybody is looking for him he's building a legend about himself as a new Pink Panther because that's the
way he sees himself as a pink panther [Music] Paris the spring of of 95 according to
French police a man posing as European royalty was seen in discos like this endearing himself to young models and
film stars he called himself Prince galazin Christo like many of the players he appeared to have money and endless
free time police said the prince was actually a thief who robbed Villas in shops along the Riviera in Paris he
posed as an investment Wizard and sold worthless stocks to gullible Rich from what we can tell he um his criminal
background started back in ' 87 or ' 88 George Mueller is a detective with the Los Angeles District Attorney's
Office according to Mueller Prince Christo's real name is Christopher roken Court a Frenchman with an impressive
resume he was arrested several times and actually did some prison time in in France for counterfeiting um forgery of
checks um uh breach of trust um falsification of documents um so his he started at a very young age back there
before he turned 30 roken Court's involvement in a jewelry heist in Switzerland had gotten him thrown out of
that country I don't believe they had enough to prosecute him on the case and he was expelled from the country of
switzland I believe to the year 2016 apparently um came here to United States here and the whole game started
here in Los Angeles in America roken Court used many names all famous all calling guards he said he
was Chrystal lenus related to dino Dees the film producer and at times he was Christopher Lauren son of Sophia
luren he was doing the same thing he would do everywhere he would make the scene he infiltrated uh you know the
movie world he was hanging out with Mickey roor uh you know he's uh he's he's doing
Sunset Strip with Mickey yes my finan you actually Mickey W says he's the the man who's going to
rebuild my career this the guy who's going to bring me back baby they were inseparable for quite some time I
understand he actually moved in Paparazzi photographer eel Woody got to know roken cord well as he covered his
nightly Antics on the celebrity beat he looked like a 12-year-old kid with a broken nose very friendly very outgoing
how have you been I've been well good you look good yeah love being in front the camera like being seen as a
Hollywood producer convincing enough to convince Jean Claud bondam and Mickey roor that he was a big time
producer he is an individual who surrounds himself or at least tries to with government officials dignitaries um
people that have extreme amount of wealth people who have things that they can give them cars property um anything
that he can get his hands on that will benefit him for him to further on his game um is the people that he will
approach and the people that he will try to um play the game with it was an Mo roken Court would repeat time and time
again the first step in his con was to convince his victims he was the last person who would need their money he
always invited people back to his hotel room cuz he told people that he was staying in waren Batty's old room and
once he gets him in the room and you're overwhelmed by the size of the room and you know some of the individuals he even
showed cash he opened up his safe and says look what I have in here and there was over 100 ,000 of cash in there he'll
have the best champagne he'll have caviar he'll do all that and to believe that I am someone big I am an investor
and then all of a sudden he'll he'll just drop it he'll approach you and say by the way says you know I'm getting
ready to do this big deal my money's tied up overseas if you give me some cash I can make you five times the
amount of the money um he told people sometimes you give me $50,000 I'll make you a million
[Music] dollar P Ray a former centerfold model and actress met roken cord in LA in ' 96
they married at a year later they had a son Zeus it almost sounds like Christopher
might have started teaching her the game a little bit and used her and Christopher likes surrounded himself
with beautiful women usually the model type very tall very attractive he'd have many
girlfriends on the side even though Pia was in the hotel room with them and Pregnant he'd have other women come
there and he'd take them into the other way he used women like tools and he used women to set up his
suckers basically if you've ever seen the sting this is the way Mr roken Court acted Ali mgar A former bouncer known as
Benny first met roken cour in Paris but didn't get to really know him until late
one night in La when he and some friends were trying to get into a Sunset Strip nightclub I couldn't get
and uh suddenly uh this white Mercedes pulled up convertible with couple girls you know like I think two or three
something uh and uh who came out of the car Mr Christopher and I looked at this kid they said wow he's got everything
you know fabulous you know the big picture Hollywood dream you know he looked at me when he was walking in he
asked me why you don't come with me impressed Benny signed on as Ren Court's bodyguard and driver and moved
into his apartment at the Beverly Wilshire I saw very you know lot of uh celebrities coming to his place some of
the Jackson Michael Jackson brothers came there Christopher loves shopping rale drive and going to the jewelry stores
and places like that and apparently one day while out at a jewelry store he runs
into um Germaine Jackson and his wife he now wants to to produce the Michael Jackson or the Jackson family perfume
such as Thriller whatever his songs were were going to be the titles now of this
perfume the perfume deal never happened but through it roken Court was introduced to Leah Bongo a Jackson
family friend and the daughter of the president of Gabon Africa he was looking to use Leia to do stuff in gabone he
wanted to get down there maybe get into the diamond business and things like that
according to Benny one night at an LA Club his boss took delivery of diamonds allegedly smuggled Out of Africa I saw
some diamonds counted by Mr Ren cor all these beautiful diamonds he put in the safe meanwhile Benny began to have
doubts about his boss's true identity those doubts intensified when Benny discovered guns inside roken Court's
apartment I saw this scope long shotgun standing up right there two of them and I was just out of my mind Benny
initially apparently went to the federal government um to tell them the story and
they couldn't believe the things that he was saying and eventually came to our office we interviewed Benny at length
for about two and a half hours and um listened to the story and there was some unbelievable allegations out there
accusations at which point we started to go out and investigate the the crimes that were being
alleged coming up the LA cop and the French con artist on a collision course he actually places a phone call to me I
he says you know George he says you're good at what you do I'm good at what I do he says you know he says if you would
meet me for a cup of tea he says you would really like me we could become friends
[Music] detective George Mueller and his Informer Benny begin their investigation is the Playboy roken cord
a hustler or just a rich funloving hedonist um some of the items that he would have up around his house for the
appearance that he was someone um well known or someone wealthy were photographs to the photographs that we
recovered out of the um Beverly Wilshire Hotel was a picture of the um the daughter of the president B Africa and
um in there he had a photograph appears to be signed by m Michael Jackson to Christopher he would love to be the
Godfather was his dream and his favorite movie was The Godfather watch over and over also recovered on during our search
warrant was his day planner which contained people that he would brag that he was associated with people that he
was spending time with Robert dairo Offshore Banking in Barbados named Germaine Jackson Dolph lungren Mickey
roor and John Claude Von it was rumored that Mr roken cor was actually involved in a huge ecstasy ring
involving the Israeli Mafia and um it's pretty heavy chain all gold um and he liked wearing this when he was over
there to show people again his his wealth a friend said he hated the rich he hated the new BCE there was some
cavemen some some species that needed to be destroyed and he was the doctor that
was going to cure them of their greed with greed he's the type of man who could be so
dangerous he believes he's the greatest he believes the power of the money the power of the
champagne he Ador champagne I don't know why also recovered on during our search
warrant was a Smith and Weston 357 Magnum this was actually recovered within inside the Beverly Wilshire H um
hotel in the bookcase in his room um kind of like a dirty hairy type of a magnum gun there he was a very colorful
character he bought one of Dodie thads Humvees and drove it around though I understand he bought it for with one
guy's money and was supposed to deliver it and never delivered the the hum fee whose car was this before Dy who Dy oh
do I don't know if there was a sale of items belonging to doie or the car was there but somehow or another he was able
to obtain it then he's involved in a shooting in West Hollywood Christopher says that while stopped at a red light
an individual approaches him with a handgun and starts to fire at Christopher Christopher end up shooting
somebody that night and um when the police found that individual at UCLA Medical Center his story was a little
different his story was that he was driving down the street the humb was sitting at a green light he got to check
on the welfare of the individual and all of a sudden the individual starts shooting at him which would have been
Christopher while the details of the shootout remain confused detective Mueller says one thing was certain roken
Court acted like a man with police protection or at least like a man who had police friends the uh second
individual here is a um is a police officer that Christopher bragged to people or boasted that was was on his
payroll and the way that he met this Beverly Hills Cop apparently according to the report is that he's driving his
Ferrari somewhere in in you know in in La speeding you know just going crazy the cop pulls him over says uh sorry you
know sir you realize you were speeding and uh and Rogen Court just turns the table says uh you ever driven a Ferrari
the guy says uh no say well want you come on in drive this and from then on you know they're fast buddies and he
uses this guy throughout renor did his best to charm Mueller too when he learned the law man was on his tail he
gave him a call I get back to my office there's a telephone call from a Christopher roken Court I know George he
says you're good at what you do I'm good at what I do he says you know he says if
you would meet me for a cup of tea he says you would really like me we could become friends and he also tells me he
says that if you ever file a case on me and you do arrest me he says I'm going to make bail and I'm going to flee the
Country roken Court was so unconcerned about Mueller's investigation that he didn't change his lavish lifestyle a bit
for more than year he maintained his suite at the famous Beverly Wilshire Hotel literally a million dooll home in
the sky which he paid for in cash the service was fantastic he been treated like a king over there everybody was
saluting Mr Chris how are you how ever worked that scam I don't know um but he was very proud to tell people I'm paying
$75,000 a month I'm in Warren Batty's old room um you know he had the Ferraris park there he actually was also going to
buy a Bentley he used to drive all kinds of fancy cars Lamborghinis Ferraris his
wife and his girlfriends had cars and he always arrives with an envelope full of
cash and a and a beautiful woman that's how he works Mueller wanted to know where an
unemployed would be Prince Playboy got so much cash there was an individual a maale that he got for at least um 15,000
there was another female victim she probably got taken for about 2 $100,000 he would gather money from one
individual pay for his next game try to Parlay that that into some more money and just the game kept going on circle
after Circle still where was the crime Mueller could move on a lot of them don't want to come forward and I think
he prays on those individuals knowing that they won't so no criminal charges have ever been filed against them for
those for those allegations if not a big Swindle maybe there was a little mistake you had two people working in
the state department which furnished him real American passports for $15,000 a piece I said what's going on and he
explained to me he bought this American passport eventually Mueller got a warrant to search roken Court's home
based on the items he found there and Benny's corroboration an arrest warrant for roken court was
issued in April 1998 LA police arrested roken court and charged with conspiracy in connection with obtaining phony
passports and bribery he posted bail of $175,000 facing a trial roken court suddenly vanished just as he told
Mueller he would he goes away for two years yeah and and during those during those two
years nobody's quite sure where he is at any given time we believe Miami we think
in Miami Hong Kong and Hong Kong the New York Times reporters pick up leads that roken court is all over the
world he's spotted in Europe and Canada Mueller uses interpole Scotland Yard and
the French police but nobody can lay a finger on the elusive con man who knows he likes France he likes Italy but he
loves the United States he loves to be with the glitz's the cars the women the fine restaurants uh we've heard Las
Vegas we've heard New York and when it appears he was in New York um Christopher could be anywhere as one
victim actually told me you could drop Christopher from the sky anywhere any country any City anywhere and he would
be able to play his game he would get be people to believe in him in the winter of 2000 a man with a
French accent shows up in New York City rented a loft in Tribeca just waled right into the
place no references no nothing just a $6,000 a month apartment how dod you do it exactly he showed up with cash here's
your money 6,000 a month money up front ask no questions he tosses a party at a Manhattan Restaurant months later
newspaper reports claim that Chris roken Court was the mystery party host I was at the party it was Posh uh fet minan
for for dinner Cristal champagne for the appetizers beforehand uh lefit Rothchild
red in the old crusty bottles um beautiful the whole thing was beautiful three tiers of seafood
appetizers chilled scallops and clams and shrimp all that kind of stuff roken Court was there that night and he was uh
I didn't know who he was at the time but I got the sense that he was honcho the whole thing because he was kind of
dressed up in his three-piece suit and his little glasses had his cigar he was very nervous he was walking around
making sure that everything was going okay you know making sure that the wine was poured roken Court apparently
ordered thousands of dollars of Fine Wine and Food but never paid for it I heard that he skipped out on the bill
that's what the police believe um and I heard the figure was about 45,000 sometime after the party in
Manhattan broken Court decided that he was going to relocate again it was the summer of 2000 he
needed to be near his favorite things beautiful women the Sun and money he found all three in East Hampton
Long Island he he carried himself in in a certain way I mean it was automatically
it was just you know it wasn't a person you were going to really have a friendly
hey how are you nice I mean you knew this guy kind of sat back a little let you make the approach there's no
question he carried himself as as uh someone with a lot of money and a lot of prestige
coming up a name change to Christopher Rockefeller and the start of a million dooll Hampton's hustle he didn't want to
leave the Hamptons he never would have left the Hampton he just liked the [Music]
area more stars more Hollywood people go to East Hampton you don't need a lot of money to
buy out here the average property in the village I think last year was $1.4 Million and that's a very small
house you get a lot of enthusiastic young people who are investors or inventors you get a wonderful sense of
old money old families who are still you know around the Hampton they one of the most
beautiful places in the world we're trusting people out here you know we live a beautiful life out
here because of the way we trust one another out here and in the summertime out in the Hampton I think we tend to
think that most anyone out here is one of us because you know they can afford to be here in the first place
right Christopher roken cour entered East Hampton's lifestyle back in early April he was staying at several breed
and breakfast and he was attempting to purchase a $9 million home there was a realtor that was out here that had given
her a credit card so that Christopher could stay at the pink house and she put him up for the night at the bed and
breakfast The Pink House he fit right in from my understanding he came out he had a lot
of money he was eating at all the best places in in East Hampton uh going to the uh best nightclubs and my
understanding was he was throwing around a lot of a lot of cash Christopher stayed here at our personal house the
weekend of the Memorial Day weekend because the pink house was fully booked Christopher offered that I kick
everybody out of the pink house and he would double the rooms to pay at at The Pink House just so he could stay there
and I said by all means I said that's physically impossible however bill and I my husband and I did talk it over and we
offered Kristoff our personal house for $66,000 for four nights he came down here he looked at the house he says it's
great I'll take it roken Court's M MO is strikingly familiar he had a personal assistant a butler and a model named
Loren by his side but he did make one change for of the Hamptons he had a new name
Rockefeller the first time we met Christopher Rockefeller um was actually before the general season started
shamina abas manages tsunami the restaurant that was to become roken Court's unofficial playground there was
Christopher and this GL very glamorous blonde woman and then this short other assistant gentleman who didn't really
sit down with him he sat down down just to eat dinner but then he got up and was
answering a cell phone constantly and going in and out and then he came over to me on their first meeting and you
know just very gently let me know that they flew in every weekend on a helicopter and that they were going to
be spending the whole summer in the Hamptons and you know they'll be back and forth from Europe but they loved the
food and they loved the restaurant and you know they'd be back renor did well in choosing his new
name the Rockefeller Clan has been American royalty for Generations but few in the Hampton knew enough about them to
doubt the Frenchman's claim that he was a member of a European branch of the family I think younger people were a
struck and were so blinded by the name that they just and of course once again here he is in the Hampton so he must be
real roken Court found his first victim at the Hampton's gym a masseuse named coren ilink she certainly believed his
story police say she gave him $14,000 to invest and pl to give him more this is money that she had accumulated over you
know years uh that were in in brokerage accounts which obviously given the markting conditions weren't all that
well performing so uh you know Rockefeller comes in the picture and is promising you know these huge returns in
in very short order and you know she she got Star Struck and just uh fell for it
basically Hook Line and Sinker roken Court also persuaded eel Tink to introduce him to her clients including a
stock broker in his 20s who is having some trouble making payments on his summer
house he sniffs out the stock broker immediately this is a guy who wants something he might lose his house roken
Court makes him a pitch listen you don't know me but you know who I am basically
so how about if I loan you some money Christopher offers him you know this fabulous um no interest um
loan for a year for half a million dollars it's one little caveat all he has to do is give him
$50,000 uh good faith money while this is going on uh his cell phone is ringing constantly and you know this beefy Aid
de Camp Joseph is answering it sweating going oh it's uh you know it's the kennedies oh it's Prince Albert oh it's
you know it's it's always you know another uh you know another high powerered person on the line and they're
carrying off the charade so uh the stock broker to do it they seal the deal with a lavish
dinner at roken Court's favorite hangout I think there 101 people at the dinner uh Christopher with his assistant
and this young lady Laurence the stock broker had been trying to get in here at like 9:00 at night you know all summer
long couldn't get a table 10:00 at night this guy calls up you know has Joseph call up on the cell phone you know yeah
we need a table for 10 at 8:00 boom it's done they ordered a feast they ordered champagne at the table they had
everything on the menu they tried they had everything they did basically tasting menu of everything we had and
then they move on to EnV which is the nightclub and they have the VIP room all set up they go into the VIP room there's
Don pero there's top shelf conac nobody's minding the bill nobody cares this guy's paying everybody's having a
great time hundreds if not thousands of dollarss uh laid out before us um by the owner of the restaurant and so
the stock broker is convinced that this is for Real little does he know he never
gets the money wired into his bank account even though he's got this guy $50,000 in cash and stock broke says you
know what made me man I paid for getting swindled I I paid the bill for the celebration of me getting swindled but
the fun and games were about to come to an abrupt end when renor met this man an
artist who was determined to reveal the Truth by cunning the C I totally knew that he he was not for
real and I organized a fake dinner everyone was a fake in the table oh that's perfect long before the Hampton became a
playground for Manhattan's glitterati it secluded Beach's soft light and natural
beauty made it a home to artists many still live here including renowned Spanish born painter hin Saran
Pagan been 20 years as an artist he first met Rogen Court in July through his friend the massuse Corin Neil tin
said uh I have uh one of my clients who is a an art collector she brings him over to Bon saying I've got this great
artist friend uh maybe this is a great opportunity for you to invest in his paintings he was dress very
simple he was telling me things about art like this painting I love it I'm going to put it together with with the
Picasso I have from the pink period in my living room and this one I'm going to put it with Camille pisar Ros work that
I have in a matter of 1 hour I learned that he had three times dinner with Clinton that he
um he had two Jets he had two jets in copz with helicopters he had uh uh he bought uh a boat $34 million
boat so the connection has been made and Rockefeller is trying to put the con on
thean definitely he was trying to impress and uh but still it was too soon for me and um to uh to to be uh
suspicious really Pagan's suspicions increased when he offered his guest a drink I didn't
have any good wine I have a very cheap wine from California that I usually I use for Sangria he smell it and he
thought I was a great wine so I being French and rock fella and and all this and he couldn't distinguish a
French wine from a cheap California wine so I I I was a little bit uh surprised so over the course of a few weeks
Rockefeller comes over a lot of times and they get to like each other and the facade starts to crack he wrote in my
guest book that he lived on 5ifth Avenue and 57 Street and one of my guests asked
him where did he leave live and he said fth Aven in 59 Street and then he left a telephone
number as his main office and then I call and his main office was simply uh um an
answering machine with a message and I I doubt that a Rockefeller with the main office didn't have a secretary of of
people that I could talk to and um so I start having doubts about about him so the painter figures out what's
going on and he throws a little party he wants to turn the T tables just for himself just for the LA well what I did
was to to say to himis I'm going to organize a dinner for you and then he said really and I said yeah and I'm
going to invite some of my friend my wealthy friends you know and Rich and and interesting friends so that you can
meet them and he said [Music] okay recently that dinner was reenacted for a People magazine article on the con
man the top over there Maria fadis is the bureau chief of the magazine she's also a friend of
pagans who was there that night he told me that he had invited him for dinner and he wanted all of us to come to
dinner that night and you know be different people oh that's I had a friend with me and she's Greek also and
so immediately we just said all right well there's no question we're going to be shipping ayses I mean there was there
was no doubt about us kiss and my friend Peter who is an electrical electrician contractor he was an art
dealer Natco was a photojournalist she was uh the daughter of President Sony so everyone was a fake
uh character in the table we didn't have anything in the fridge except spagetti and J of pasta
source and packaged salad so um I prepared this pasta in beautiful ball and salad in a beautiful bow we
prepared beautiful table setting and he showed up you know he comes over to introduce himself and he shakes hands
and immediately he says you know Christopher rockfeller and then to me and then he goes to h notco Christopher
Rockell you know and he sort of goes to each one of us and makes sure we we heard that he was indeed Christopher
Rockefeller sat down at the dinner table with some cheap wine a cheap salad and some gravy that came out of a jar which
he thought was uh top of the line yeah he really ate a lot and so did uh Joseph so did the girl I think they were hungry
it was difficult the dinner was difficult because I have to balance and mediate the situation so that my guest
didn't uncover Chris one point I I said well so what's your house like can you describe your house out here in the
Hamptons and he said well I would I would call it pretentious and I said well you that's really interesting cuz
i' I've never heard anybody describe their own home as pretentious so sometimes I have to kick under the table
Maria and and and change a conversation because they were getting very aggressive toward Chris saying asking
him questions like where do you live where do you live in Manhattan how is your house in ampton very obvious
question that I never asked him from the start we said that we were definitely we
got to have a picture of this guy so from the afternoon when we were all discussing this Natco is a
photojournalist and had all her cameras there and so it was understood that at some point during the evening she was
going to get up and say Hey you know let's just get a group picture get everybody together so I went to pick up
the camera I came back and the Joseph pulled me aside and told me excuse me please do not take picture tonight
because he has this is his private visit and he's also very concerned about gossip magazines but then my friend CLA
who the other Greek shipping eras she just reached for this kind of one of those throwaway cameras and she just
said oh come on you know let's just get a picture and she just snapped it and it
really caused such a stir I mean Joseph ran around the table in front of prer Rockefeller and was virtually had his
body in front of him and was just blocking him finally when this girl took picture he pulled out thick white
envelope looked like lots of money in it and he tried to buy the picture if roken cord knew that he was Conn by
Pagan's guests he didn't show it he was so comfortable that he kept coming to my
place he came another three times to my place roken Court moved on from the dinner party to weather Hampton targets
the local police say he may have conned as much as $1 million from the so-called
Sophisticated New Yorkers between East Hampton and Southampton is approximately five to six
people and I think that a lot of them uh have difficulty not with just the loss of the money but also the trust issue
they open themselves up to someone who they felt comfortable with who they who had befriended them and I think that
that that's an issue for a few of them as far as the trust whatever you see right now is the tip of an iceberg and
the more you dig into this he's been here the whole summer the more victims you will find but the con man living on
the edge did what he always seemed to do just when things were going his way he made a
mistake coming up next a bust in the Hamptons we made an arrest on August 2nd of Mr R
[Music] courter the East Hampton Police Department like a lot of small town operations is better equipped to handle
DUI call than con locals like to boast they don't have criminals here or so they thought the
roken court case would demand the attention of the entire detective squad both of them the police department was
notified about Mr roken Court's activities uh on August 1st of this year I think that would have been on a
Wednesday Kevin MCC made the call on behalf of his friend Corine ilink the masseuse who'd been one of roken Court's
first victims in the Hampton money forget it you know um she she knew she lost it she'd never see a nickel of it
back and uh you know the only thing was to try and get some satisfaction out of it by getting him arrested McCary uh
contacted myself and Bob flood from the neighboring police department and alerted us that there were several
victims that had uh given large amounts of money to Mr roken Court under these different uh promises that he made
myself and and uh my partner and Sergeant flood then tried to locate Mr roken Court which we finally
did with Mr mccc's assistance the East Hampton detectives were not aware of roken Court's past
they did not talk to LA detective George Muer they did not talk to the Paris Police there was no time to check out
interpole they picked up roken court and asked about mcc's accusation his demeanor was very arrogant and cocky and
uh appeared not to be nervous at all even though now that we know that he was wanted in California but he showed no
signs of uh you know letting on to that besides mccc's claims the police were aware that
roken Court had skipped out on his bill at the pink house that was enough for sergeant lson he made an arrest on
August 2nd of Mr roken Court we we were just taken back by the whole thing you know that somebody can come in and and
do so much damage and abrupt people's lives the way he did and not only take from the rich but take
from a family like my husband and myself who we work really hard we don't have that much money and he was ready to take
our life savings in a heartbeat and that that's really sad at the time of his arrest here he was arrested under the
name of um Fabian ortuno he gets arrested he makes a call he says it's Fabian ortuno bring my
passport there's no Fabian ortuno passport but one shows up Fabian ortuno in 3 hours he's booked he's in front of
the judge the bail set at midnight for about $45,000 he's out by midday they messed
up the fingerprints didn't come back FBI interpo had they waited two days they would have had him had him dead but they
didn't because this is the Hamptons and maybe he is somebody he brings in a high
powerered lawyer he's showing cash maybe there's something to it on August 3rd broken Court made bail
and with no Fanfare walked out of the East Hampton Courthouse meanwhile I'm standing before the judge saying of
course he's not going to come back and uh you know you don't even know who the guy is the court dat comes Bruce
Cutler well-dressed well-known attorney says your honor I don't know know where he is I'm shocked I just hope he's
okay the East Hampton Police were also shocked they called Beverly Hills and began to learn the truth about the man
they had in their hands in their custody who was now nowhere to be found I get a
telephone call um from The Hamptons that they had Christopher in custody there and that he was he posted $45,000 cash
bail and he also produced a French passport of course under a different name name and again now he was also in
the wind coming up next the con man on the run and the red-faced police chasing him we're still actively trying to
locate Mr roken cour and we're searching for more victims and any clues at all that we can find to help us locate his
whereabouts Christopher roken Court was on the Run leaving those who he had contact with to ponder his fate
I know that's tough for him because I'm sure that he would like to be with his wife his
son instead of going from place to place like hiding being a fujitive today he needs to con that's that's his nature he
he's the con man and he's not going to go work at McDonald's or get a 9 to-5 job he very good he can pass through
borders totally unseen he can change his Ide at will he can uh counterfeit passports he can
counterfeit all kinds of IDs himself he is a totally ingenious uh intelligent manipulator of
the system he's Fearless the police will arrest tomorrow uh Chris put him in jail and where are
the charges not many there's not many proofs this is kind of like his final chapter
he knows he's eventually going to be caught or something's going to happen to him he's going to either rip off the
wrong person someone's going to come looking for him you know but eventually um he wants to go down kind of a glory
people even told me now that if he ever views this that he's going to sit there and and he's going to be sitting there
laughing the whole time that look at here I am now I'm somebody big look at they're doing a story about me on
November 1st 2000 months after Christopher roken cour fled the Hamptons the New York Times reporters received a
phone call broken court on the line first question we asked him do you believe that you're a criminal and he
said I do not believe I'm a criminal because I steal with my mind he's got this crazy French accent um we talked
for about an hour and um I mean the upshot was he really felt little remorse for his actions he felt pity for his
victims he uh he said it was sad that they were so greedy um uh and uh he didn't find this funny at all he said
there's nothing funny about stupidity we asked him about pagan uh the artist who uh had thought that he had turned
the tables on roken court by uh doing the surprise Suare and he he he begged to differ with Pagan's version of events
he said that uh that Pagan had not fooled him at all he had seen through the shade and and furthermore that that
no classy gentleman would ever throw a dinner party and put one bowl of pasta in the middle of the table for his
guests and towards the end of the conversation we uh we got around to uh do you think you'll get caught and uh he
seemed very very serious when he said that is in the hands of God and uh you know and he said uh if I get caught I
will do my time roken Court refused to reveal his location and all he would say was that uh he was in an
English-speaking country and that it was early uh it was 10:00 New York time when
we talked to him apparently he was telling the truth about where he was calling from on April 26th 2001 roken
court his wife and Child by his side was arrested inside this hotel in a suburb of Victoria British Columbia in western
Canada he had allegedly swindled $150,000 from a local businessman all of his victims well a
lot of his victims I should say not only felt betrayed by him but there was a deeper feeling of wow this
guy not only took my money and left but I don't get to hang out with them anymore I liked him yeah they actually
miss him in some ways [Music]

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Brief Summary

Christopher Roken Court, a con artist, swindled wealthy victims by posing as royalty in Hollywood and the Hamptons.

Key points

The Investigation Begins. Detective George Mueller and his informer Benny start investigating Roken Court's activities.
The Legend of Christopher Roken Court. Roken Court, a con artist, builds a lavish lifestyle while evading law enforcement.
The Mysterious Party Host. Roken Court throws a lavish party in Manhattan, leaving behind a hefty unpaid bill.
The Con Man's Charade. Christopher roken Court deceives wealthy victims in the Hamptons, leaving them in disbelief.
The Arrest. Roken Court is arrested but quickly makes bail, leaving authorities shocked.
The Final Chapter. Roken Court reflects on his life of crime, showing no remorse for his actions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He sees himself as a Pink Panther.

0:48WatchJul 28, 2014

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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