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After nearly five years in prison, Christopher Rocancourt’s days as a con man living in the U.S. ended when immigration officials put him on a one way flight back to France—first class, of course.
“Dateline” was with him as he jetted back to Paris. Outside the airport, swarms of paparazzi jockeyed for the first photos of the French con man who’d swindled all those rich Americans.
He sped away to dodge the French press, but had promised “Dateline” his first TV interview to take place a few days after his return. He had to speed away to dodge the French press, leaving us to wonder whether he’d keep his promise to give “Dateline” his first interview.
So now he was home, the city of lights, and not incidentally the scene of some of his earliest crimes. But there were still unanswered questions: How had he done it, how had he pulled off all those cons, and to make a living now, would he do it again?
But typically, before we had a chance to ask those questions, he was gone.
Mike Taibbi, Dateline correspondent: For many years in your life, you were not honorable.
Christopher Rocancourt: I agree with that.
Taibbi: How honest are you willing to be with us in the answers you give us? 100 percent? 70 percent? Depends on the question?
Rocancourt: No, no, no, no. I don’t have time to play games no more.
Rocancourt had played the game for many years, and except for the one time he pleaded guilty in court, he refused to admit he was a con man— always insisting that his victims were just bad business people who had loaned him some money.
Taibbi: So are you’re willing now to say for the first time, “Yes, I Christopher Rocancourt, I was a con man.”
Rocancourt: I’ve been a “confidence man.”
Taibbi: The abbreviation is con man. You always hated that.
Rocancourt: I don’t like that word. It sounds so corny. You know “con man.” It sounds so corny. It’s just confined in such a little word.
Taibbi: To con is to trick. And you tricked people.
Rocancourt: Like I say, “confidence man,” I agree with that. But the “con man,” yeah, see, listen, if you like it, go ahead for it.
Rocancourt prefers another word to describe his skills: actor.
Taibbi: An actor.
Rocancourt: I think I’ve been a great actor. I don’t think you can be a good con man, you know, without having some acting lessons.
Rocancourt says he started honing his acting skills at a very early age to conceal his less than glamorous upbringing. He was born in the small French city of Honfleur on the Normandy coast. Rocancourt never told anyone, not even his wife, that his father was an alcoholic who froze to death on the street, and that his mother was a sometime prostitute. Rocancourt was abandoned at age five, and grew up an orphan at the children’s hostel of San Germaine.
Dateline was with him during his first visit in 25 years.
Rocancourt: I remember my father bring me to this orphanage—the last time I saw him. I remember crying. He left.
He ran away from the orphanage in his teens, and that’s when his life of crime began. At 23, his first really big score, forging a deed for a Paris building he didn’t own and then selling it!
Taibbi: You sold a building?
Rocancourt: Yeah the whole building. That is what they call… I did make a fake deed. I did sell the whole building. (laughter)
Taibbi: And how much did you sell this building for that you didn’t own?
Rocancourt: $1.4 million.
Taibbi: Dollars?
Rocancourt: Yes.
He had discovered the kind of crime that would define his life— he would be a con man, eventually taking on many different identities, including Christopher Rockefeller, a name that he says just “popped into his head” as he signed the guest register at a Hamptons gym.
Rocancourt: The lady said “What’s your name? You know you have to register.” I signed it “Rockefeller.” Just like that.
Taibbi: Just like that.
Rocancourt: Just like that.
Taibbi: What was the effect on other people the first time you used the name Rockefeller and claimed it as your own?
Rocancourt: Like an ice cream melted. People just melt.
Taibbi: They just melted.
Rocancourt: Yeah.
A Rockefeller with an accent so thick you sometimes need subtitles to understand him.
Rocancourt: How you for a minute can be serious to think when you don’t have to know history to say, “Hey, Rockefeller, your French accent. There’s no Rockefeller in France.” C’mon, use your brain?
Taibbi: All they needed to believe it for was a split second that if they could smell money—
Rocancourt: They smell the money like the shark smell the blood. Nothing else.
Taibbi: But, they wouldn’t even pick up the odor. They wouldn’t even pick up the smell if they hadn’t heard the name “Rockefeller.”
Rocancourt: They didn’t wait—for the smell. Zoom... My gosh.
And whether he was playing the role of a Rockefeller in the Hamptons or a movie producer in Hollywood, Rocancourt says he always used the same simple bag of tricks to lure his potential victims: champagne dinners at an expensive restaurants, and the unmistakable impression that the guy who always reached for the check, always, had to be absolutely loaded.
Taibbi: What’s the biggest tab you ever picked up? Do you remember?
Rocancourt: Biggest tab? With wine I think is—probably 80 grand.
He says he always counted on his victims thinking they were taking advantage of him, and that he always counted on their greed.
Rocancourt: You do think for that time you are much smarter than me. You did think for that time, you can profit better with me.
Taibbi: Right, and so for those people, they should be punished?
Rocancourt: No, no, no, no, no. You been a dummy. You been stupid. Just like I did prison time. I take my time. Just accept it for fact. You’re not that bright. You been stupid for that time. Just accept it. Oh, you been ripped off. Is what happened.
Taibbi: But what you have done is criminal. You admit that.
Rocancourt: No question.
Taibbi: But you’re saying you don’t feel any sympathy for the people who lost money—
Rocancourt: No.
Taibbi: --because they were greedy and they believed in you and they threw money at you. And you didn’t pay ‘em back. You don’t feel sorry for them?
Rocancourt: No. I keep it real. You want honesty? You have it. I keep it real. What do you want me to tell you? I have a feeling I don’t have? I don’t.
But you still had to wonder, and we did: whether this con man is like the high stakes gambler who once exalted that "Money you earn is never as sweets as money you win" and whether this con man will simply miss the con too much to stay away.
Rocancourt: People change. Why you cannot just believe for once that can be possible? Listen—
Taibbi: Oh I believe it. I believe people can change. I don’t know about you. Question now, are you gonna live an honest life now?
Rocancourt: Yeah, I will.
Taibbi: Honest in all ways?
Rocancourt: If you will ask me, “I will never lie again?” No, of course I will lie again. On what level? Not on the same level. Listen, let’s not be foolish now. Okay? I’m well known for what I did. Come on. No, you can be a good player but there is a time where you just retreat, you know? You have to stop it.
Taibbi: And you’re saying that won’t happen again?
Rocancourt: No, it will not. I think it’s a closed chapter.
George Mueller, the L.A. investigator who tracked Rocancourt’s con man career isn’t buying it.
Det. George Mueller:, L.A. police: He’s not gonna change. I mean, you really can’t take the lines off of a zebra. I don’t believe the game is over. I think Christopher will be back doing what he does. I don’t believe he’s gonna change his ways.
The ultimate con: celebrity
So what does a convicted con man do for an encore?
Given the French appetite for his story, he was about to pull off the ultimate con— turning his celebrity as a criminal into a money making venture.
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And while he was in prison, he wrote a best seller: “I, Christopher Rocancourt, Orphan, Playboy, Prisoner” (English translation). The deal for a second book, “Christopher Rocancourt, My Lives” was signed within days of his arrival. He even sold the rights to his name on a clothing line, Rocancourt Jeans.
In fact, Rocancourt is being treated as something of a national hero, the solitary French rogue who beat the big bad rich Americans at their own greedy game.
Rocancourt: To be a French citizen, barely speak English. Come to America I say “Hey, I’m here. There you go, let’s make this my playground.”
When you spend time with the con man as we did, you can see how his charm and his fast moving tongue talked a lot of people out of a lot of money— and it makes you wonder if, for this former orphan-turned-millionaire, crime did pay.
Taibbi: You had stashed some money away. At least I got the clear impression that you’d stashed some money away. Had you?
Rocancourt: No. I can't answer that.
Taibbi: How many millions in your life did you make?
Rocancourt: At least 40. In my life I had $40 million.
Taibbi: $40 million.
Rocancourt: Yeah.
Taibbi: Which means you made $40 million.
Rocancourt: All my life—my whole life? Yeah, easy, yeah. Yeah, I did make couple dollar. (Laughs).
When he was sentenced, the judge ordered Rocancourt to repay more than a million dollars to his victims. To date, he has only repaid about $5,000. And prosecutors think there’s little chance his victims will ever get full restitution.
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