According to sex goddess and outrage enthusiast Andrea Peyser, of course. How can Andrea make her story stand out from all the boring, tragic, "woman recounts harrowing story of worrying for her daughter's life" testimony coverage in the boring papers? By calling victim Sandra Boss "the dumbest woman alive."

Repeatedly smiling inappropriately and speaking in an annoyingly flat, lock-jawed voice, Boss primly took the witness stand at the kidnapping trial of her ex-husband, who was known as Clark Rockefeller. A guy who never had a driver's license, Social Security number or visible means of support.
[...]
The marriage continued for 12 years. Not 12 weeks. Or 12 minutes — which is the average time you would expect a Harvard Business School grad to be fooled by this character. That is, if she really wanted to know.

Yes, well, Andrea, in order for one to be a successful con man, it helps to be able to convince people of the con for more than twelve minutes. Otherwise you are just a "liar."

So! Who is the real villain here? The man who simply used charm and pathological cunning to trick literally everyone he encountered in his life for thirty years into believing that he was someone rich and important, who then assaulted a social worker in order to throw his crying daughter into a limo and steal her to Baltimore, and whose lawyers are currently attempting the insanity defense? Or the woman who responded, in your characterization, "weirdly," when told her daughter had been recovered safely? That's right. That stupid bitch is basically the worst human being in the world.

Specifically, according to snarling werewolf-columnist Andrea Peyser, if you can believe it! This traumatized woman, Sandra Boss, had a child with the con artist calling himself Clark Rockefeller. Then the guy flipped out and kidnapped the kid. This woman's ordeal makes Andrea sick:

But Sandra Boss shouldn't get off the hook. She's unquestionably guilty of stupidity in the first degree.

Either that, or, even more likely, something even worse. She really didn't want to know.

Why wouldn't she want to know that her husband is a pathological liar who would go on to kidnap her own child? Maybe because, as Andrea deftly puts it in her opening line, "At least he was straight. We think."

Ha, let us snarl at this unfortunate woman! A man being straight is the minimum requirement for Andrea Peyser not to cannibalize him on her fortnightly moonlit hunting trips around Manhattan. The Post photo caption guys do their part by labeling Sandra a "Dingaling doormat," in a photo of her with her young child.

Blaming the victim is always the Post's fallback position, because it's easier, and it fits in with their perma-sneers, and the werewolf blood running through Andrea Peyser's veins has already stripped her of all human empathy, so why not go with it? Just wait till the woman starts crying over the trauma her child has endured. That's when Andrea can really mock her!
[NYP]

From his childhood days in Germany, Chris/Clark was always intrigued by high society and the finer things. Prone to big dreams and imaginings, at seventeen-years-old he fled his family for the New World. The sleepy town of Meriden, Connecticut, to be exact, where he stayed with a family he'd met on a train in Europe some time earlier. From there he proceeded to a run a thirty year con, changing names several times and going from the toasted It Boy of San Marino, to fake USC film buff, Wall Street big wig, fake art collector, pretend Rockefeller, church owner, celebrated demagogue of Beacon Hill Brahmin high society, and, finally, a man named Chip Smith, arrested by a swarm of armed authorities on a Baltimore street. He's been kind of a terrible person who, you know, maybe murdered a young couple back in California, but compelling facts like these just keep us glued:

• He floated around the country for 30 years without one single piece of official documentation.
• Learned his rich boy drawl from none other than Thurston Howell III, the Gilligan's Island millionaire character.
• When in California as Christopher Chichester, XIII Bt, he made up a Chichester family crest: "a heron, its wings spread, with an eel in its beak."
• Said he was the descendant of a former viceroy of India. And people believed him!
• Was given his own public access television show, Inside San Marino.
• Lived with a drunk old lady named Didi Sohus. Later, probably, killed her son and daughter-in-law, buried them in the backyard. When asked why the whole yard was dug up, he said he was having plumbing problems. He kept Didi from worrying by posing, on the phone, as a State Department official and telling her that the kids were working for the government and were on a secret mission overseas. This case was later on Unsolved Mysteries, and Christopher Chichester was mentioned by name and a photograph was aired. He avoided it by fleeing back East.
• When in Greenwich, and reinvented as Christopher Crowe, had the initials CCC embroidered on everything he wore.
• Used David Berkowitz's (the "Son of Sam" killer) social security number when applying for a job.
• Managed to get two high-profile Wall Street jobs with absolutely no experience or credentials.
• When that went bust, reinvented himself again as Clark Rockefeller. Fooled much of New York society, dazzling them with his rococo stories about secluded mansions and regal dinners, jingling his "key to Rockefeller Center," and dazzling collectors and connoisseurs with his impressive works of art (which later turned out to all be fakes).
• "At the end of many a meal of beef ribs and succotash at the armory, Rockefeller would exclaim, 'Isn’t this grand!,' and if it was an extra-grand evening, he would add, 'It’s a peach-melba night!' Quigley recalls, 'And then he would order peach melba, and here we were, two grown men, sitting there eating parfaits.'"
• Played the didgeridoo.
• Rumored to speak five to seven languages.
• Sent text messages like: “In a submarine. Crowded. Strange. Thought of you a minute ago.” and “Sipping strange tropical drinks on Nantucket now. Would love to see you. This coming week perhaps go to Central Park and kiss. Sound good?”
• At five years old, his daughter Snooks drew the entire Periodic Table of Elements on a Boston sidewalk in chalk.

Srsly, just read the whole article. It's fascinating. And we were just saying that there are no good hoaxes anymore.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit [VF]