Ex-Wife Says Phony Rockefeller Was Controlling

The ex-wife of the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller said she tried to leave her husband several times, but he became angry, threatened her and told her she would lose custody of their daughter.
       
Sandra Boss was aggressively cross-examined Tuesday by a defense attorney who asked her why she stayed with her husband so long when he didn't bring in any income and told incredible stories about his past.

Prosecutors say Rockefeller, whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, has used multiple aliases since moving to the United States from Germany in 1978. He is accused of kidnapping their then-7-year-old daughter, Reigh, last year during a supervised visit in Boston.
       
Boss said her ex-husband controlled their finances and would not give her access to their bank accounts. She said at times he did not give her enough food to eat and that she sometimes woke up hungry.
       
“The defendant on one occasion, when I told him that I was strongly considering getting divorced, started screaming at me in front of Reigh and told me that if I did, he would manage to get full custody of her,” Boss said.
       
Defense attorney Jeffrey Denner, who has said his client is mentally ill and therefore not criminally responsible for his actions, repeatedly asked Boss if she thought her husband was delusional during their 12-year marriage.
       
Boss said she did not. She said her former husband told a series of lies, but “was completely clear on what he was doing.”

Denner pressed Boss repeatedly on how she could be so intelligent as a management consulting executive and so willing to believe her husband's fantastic stories.

Boss said she was smart in the business world, but did not make a “very good choice of a husband.”

“It's pretty obvious that I had a blind spot,” she said. Boss said it's possible for someone to be “really brilliant” in one area of life and “really stupid in another.”

Boss said she knew her husband told some lies to other people to make himself seem more important, but she only discovered the extent of his deception when she hired a private investigator during the divorce.
       
Rockefeller is accused of kidnapping the girl after shoving a social worker who was overseeing the visit to the ground. Father and daughter were found in Baltimore six days later. The girl was unharmed.