Clark Rockefeller has hired a new lead defense attorney, Jeffrey Denner, of Boston. The move came earlier this week and may have gone unnoticed if Denner hadn’t asked for the FBI to return about $280 large in gold coins Rockefeller had in his possession when arrested.

That’s not the only Rockefeller news.

Los Angeles County investigators are seeking access to Rockefeller’s sealed divorce records in Suffolk County Probate Court. The Suffolk County DA has already taken a look at the papers, so it seems likely LA County will get their own look as well.

What might be in the papers in anyone’s guess.  One theory floating around is that Rockefeller confessed to his wife that he wasn’t Rockefeller — and she made note of that in the proceedings.

That could go to a consciousness of guilt in a homicide prosecution. As in, why else would he change his name?

The obvious defense is that Rockefeller had already assumed several identities after coming to the country in the 1970s as German foreign exchange student Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter.

I think the proseution theory is a good one though. And I’m wondering if there may be something even more damaging, like a confession to Sandra Boss that he was Christopher Chichester and he once lived with a couple in San Marino that disappeared.

Whatever is in there, the cops and DAs office are being extremely closed-mouthed.

Here’s a link to today’s story on the case.