Phony “Rockefeller” Gets 4-5 Years for Kidnapping

A German man who called himself Clark Rockefeller and spun fantastic stories about himself during three decades in the United States was sentenced to between 4 and 5 years in prison today for kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter.
       
Rockefeller, whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, snatched his daughter during a supervised visit last July. He also was charged with two assaults on a social worker and with giving a false name to police. The jury found him guilty of one of the assault counts, but acquitted him on the other and on a charge of giving a false name to police.
       
Gerhartsreiter's lawyers said he was suffering from a delusional disorder and legally insane when he kidnapped his daughter, Reigh, and fled to Baltimore. Prosecutors called the diagnosis “preposterous” and said he planned the kidnapping for months because he was angry that his wife had divorced him and gained custody of their daughter.
       
Gerhartsreiter, wearing a dark suit and red-striped tie, looked sober but calm as the verdict was read. He had clasped his hands as he awaited the seating of the jury.

Jurors appeared sober and tense as the verdict was delivered.

Sentencing was set for Friday afternoon. The conviction on assault and battery with a dangerous weapon carries a maximum of 10 years in prison, while the parental kidnapping charge carries a maximum of five years.
       
After his arrest, authorities revealed that the man with the storied Rockefeller name was really a German national who had used multiple aliases since moving to the United States and was a “person of interest” in the 1985 disappearance and presumed slayings of a newlywed couple from San Marino, Calif.
       
A California grand jury has been hearing evidence in the disappearance of Linda and Jonathan Sohus. Gerhartreiter, who was then using the name Christopher Chicester, was living in a guest house on their property when they disappeared. He has not been charged in the California case.
       
The trial featured incredible details about the many personas Gerhartsreiter, 48, assumed as he worked his way into wealthy circles in Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

He came to the United States in 1978 as a 17-year-old student in Connecticut, and three years later, persuaded a woman in Wisconsin to marry him so he could get a green card and stay in this country.

After that, he told a wide variety of stories about himself: he was a physicist, a financial adviser who renegotiated debt for small countries, a collector who owned $1 billion worth of modern art, a cardiovascular surgeon from Las Vegas, a ship's captain based in Chile and a member of the Trilateral Commission, an elite group established in the 1970s to foster greater cooperation between the United States, Europe and Japan.
       
His ex-wife, Sandra Boss, a Harvard-educated executive at the management-consulting firm McKinsey & Co., testified that she believed her husband's stories about his past for much of their 12-year marriage. It was only when she hired a private investigator during their 2007 divorce that she realized he “was not the person he'd said he was,” she said.
       
When he was unable to prove his identity, Boss was awarded full custody of their daughter. She testified that he asked for a $1 million divorce settlement, which was later negotiated down to $800,000. As part of the agreement, he was allowed to see his daughter three times a year in visits supervised by a social worker.
       
It was during the first supervised visit that he snatched the girl.
       
Social worker Howard Yaffe testified that Gerhartsreiter pushed him to the ground and hustled his daughter into a waiting SUV, then told the driver to “Go! Go! Go!” Yaffe said he tried to climb into the car to stop him from taking the girl, and tumbled to the ground again as the SUV pulled away.
       
Father and daughter were found in Baltimore six days later. The girl was returned to her mother in London.

A real estate agent from Baltimore testified that Gerhartsreiter contacted her eight months before the kidnapping and, identifying himself as a ship's captain, asked her to help him find a house where he and his daughter could live. The week before the kidnapping, he bought a $450,000 carriage house, using his divorce settlement. The agent tipped off authorities after seeing his photo on news reports.
       
Defense attorney Jeffrey Denner told jurors that Gerhartsreiter had been mentally ill for years, but was “pushed over the edge” and suffered a psychotic break after he lost custody of his daughter. He said Gerhartsreiter believed he was communicating telepathically with his daughter, who was telling him she was in danger and needed him to save her.
       
Two mental health experts testified that they diagnosed Gerhartsreiter with a delusional disorder and narcissistic personality disorder _ illnesses they said made him unable to understand right from wrong.
       
Assistant District Attorney David Deakin said Gerhartsreiter had become accustomed to a lavish lifestyle, supported by Boss, who made up to $2 million a year, and was angry when she divorced him and gained custody of their daughter.
       
“This is not a case about madness,” Deakin said. “It's a case about manipulation.”