A con man posing as an Austrian prince allegedly swindled an elderly Rockefeller out of this $ 80,000 commode, court papers charge.
A pretend prince poached an $ 80,000 antique from a Rockefeller heiress, court papers charge.
Lisenne Rockefeller, 57, says in papers filed in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court that a Michigan man named Josef Meyers cozied up to her late mother-in-law Barbara “Bobo” Rockefeller by claiming he was “Prince Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen of Austria.”
The smooth-talking swindler even convinced her to let him and his family members stay in her $ 25 million East Side mansion for several months, before making off with her 250-year-old Louis XV Ormolu-mounted Tulipwood, Kingwood and Marquetry Commode, the lawsuit charges.
Now Lisenne, 57, is “trying to get it back,” said her lawyer, Anthony Cosantini.
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U.S. Marshall’s Office
Booking Photo of Josef Meyers of Michigan, who claimed to be Prince Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen of Austria.
Court papers say Barbara was 87 when she first met “Prince Josef” in December of 2003, and he was soon spending “a great deal of time” with her. Soon after they met, he talked his way into staying at her six-story E.67th St. mansion for eight months, with a woman he said was his wife and their children.
He also started taking greater control of Barbara’s affairs, firing longtime staffers and isolating the former actress from her family and friends, the filings say.
Soon after, her son Winthrop noticed the commode his mom had bought back in 1964 was gone, and had been replaced by a knockoff, the filings say. Josef told him he’d had the original moved into storage while the living room was painted.
By 2005, Barbara’s health was in steep decline and her sprawling home too tough for her to manage, so Winthrop invited her to stay with him and his family in Arkansas.
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Danny Johnston/AP
Lisenne Rockefeller says a Michigan man cozied up to her late mother-in-law Barbara by posing as an Austrian prince.
The mom accepted the offer, and never returned to New York. Winthrop died of a blood disorder in 2006, and Barbara died in 2008.
Lisenne says in court papers that she assumed despite her difficulties in tracking him down, Josef would return the commode. But she discovered he wasn’t who she thought he was in May 2011 when the New Yorker ran a lengthy article revealing Prince Josef as Josef Meyers of Michigan, a con man with a lengthy criminal record.
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=15806
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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