Rockefeller conman guilty of kidnapping own daughter
A German con-man who posed as a member of the wealthy US Rockefeller dynasty was found guilty of kidnapping his own daughter from her London-based mother today.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (aged 48) who went under the name of Clark Rockefeller, had pleaded insanity to the charges in a court in Boston, Massachusetts.
He snatched his seven-year-old daughter during a supervised visit last July after losing custody to his ex-wife. He was also charged with two assaults on a social worker.
The jury today also found him guilty of one of the assaults, 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 and fled to Baltimore.
The girl, Reigh Boss, was found six days later and reunited with her mother Sandra Boss a senior partner in the London office of the management consulting firm McKinsey.
During the trial, psychologist Catherine Howe told the court Gerhartsreiter suffers from delusional and narcissistic disorders which impair his judgment of what is right.
His mental health deteriorated after he lost custody to Reigh in the couple's 2007 divorce.
Defence lawyers said he believed the child was communicating with him telepathically and asked him to rescue her.
However, prosecutors said the German-born defendant was a con-man and consummate liar.
They said he was perfectly sane when he took the child.
Gerhartsreiter called himself Rockefeller to work his way into the social circle of the rich, it was claimed.
However, he is not related to the family of oil tycoon John D Rockefeller.
Gerhartsreiter was later sentenced to 4 to 5 years in jail for the offences.
