Rudolf Von Bulow Busted

By LaCandrelle Jefferson
The Paz Files

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - A happy-go-lucky lover from way back, writer Rudolf Von Bulow offered no fight, no excuses, when the cops came for him. There he was in Room 737, out in the balcony of the island condominium, looking out into the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He'd heard the knocking for a few seconds, but in his world, the world of the sophisticated world traveler, one does not answer door-banging just because it grows louder.

"Mr. Von Bulow?" the heavyset Mexican cop asked right-off.

Rudolf reportedly nodded and then asked, "What brings you boys up here on such a fine, fine morning?"

A woman had complained, he was told.

"Oh?" was Von Bulow's reply to that.

"She claims she was brought up here by you and that you wouldn't let her leave when she wanted to leave," the cop said in way too many words. Von Bulow was used to better speech. He reached for his ear and tugged at it, thinking, "What did this idiot just say?"

Seconds later, he asked, "And so?"

"We're gonna have to take you in, sir," the fat-faced cop went on. "For questioning, but we're gonna have to take you in right now. I need to tell you that you are not under arrest, but are being detained." The cop coughed nervously. Von Bulow, a tall man of harsh German ancestry smiled and said, "I'll get my coat and we'll be off."

He was at the police staion 10 minutes later, being told a 23-year-old woman by the name of Louise Herrera had filed a complaint, alleging Von Bulow had slipped her a drug or something and had his way with her. She said she remembered the room's light fading as he began to undress her on the bed. And then she said he dropped on her, forcing himself on her. The details were sketchy, as the woman said she could not remember much more.

"I am innocent of the charge," Von Bulow told a detective, according to the police report.

This happened last weekend. Saturday night, in fact. Von Bulow told detectives he met Ms. Herrera, a college student working part-time for the county, at an island bar and they seemed to hit it off quickly, the young woman being impressed by his Rolex watch and expensive Italian suit. Police quoted her saying, "I've never been with such an educated man. He is not like the Mexicans I date in Brownsville."

Von Bulow was charged with rape, but was released after he posted a $100,000 bond.

Asked about the evening's events, Von Bulow calmly recalled the encounter.

"I bought her several drinks and she loosened up nicely," he told this reporter. "I could tell she was a member of the proletariat, a woman not wise to the wiles of a travelled man. We danced a tune by Billy Ocean, I believe. Yeah, Caribbean Queen. She looked absolutely sensual in her tight blue jeans and halter top. Really, it was her drinking that did her in. They tell me she's 23 years old, so one would believe that a woman of that age knows what she's doing with a man, wouldn't you say?"

Louise Herrera declined to comment on the night in question, or on the charges filed against Von Bulow. "I'm scared," she said during a brief telephone conversation. "He is such a strong, strong man. And I'm just a lowly student studying cosmetology. I should've declined his advances, but I was on the island and the island makes women do things they wouldn't do in Brownsville."

Asked to characterize Von Bulow's lovemaking, she said, "I wish I could remember any of it, even the smallest of details..."

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