Rockefeller attorney: He only remembers 'bits and pieces'

August 8, 2008 07:50 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By John R. Ellement and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The attorney for the man known as Clark Rockefeller, the accused kidnapper whose true identity has mystified law enforcement authorities, said today his client can remember only fragments of his past before 1993 -- but he knows he didn't commit murder.

"He tells me he still doesn't remember about his past," Stephen Hrones said at a news conference at the Suffolk County jail on Nashua Street.

Rockefeller is facing charges for allegedly kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter from a street in Boston's Back Bay in late July and spiriting her to Baltimore, where he was arrested six days later and the girl was found safe. Investigators are also probing whether he is involved in the disappearance of a couple in California in the mid-1980s.

Hrones said Rockefeller, despite his lack of memory, "absolutely denies" ever being involved in a murder.

"Certain things you know you didn't do," he said.

Hrones said his client could remember "bits and pieces," including a childhood visit to Mt. Rushmore in a station wagon and a Scottish nanny.

Asked about reports in the Globe and other media outlets today that Rockefeller's true identity may be Christian Gerhartstreiter, a native of Germany who came to the United States as an exchange student in the late 1970s, Hrones revealed that Rockefeller speaks and understands German but doesn't know how he got that ability.

Hrones said his client is "fine, calm, concerned, very rational."

"Naturally, he's very concerned being locked up in prison," the prominent defense attorney said. He said Rockefeller had requested that he bring him a book on the rules of baseball and a book on Paris during World War I.

He also said that Rockfeller wanted to tell his story to the media, but Hrones wanted to decide the appropriate setting and ground rules.

Hrones's comments came after a man in the picturesque village of Bergen, Germany today identified Rockefeller in photographs as his older brother, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, saying in an interview that he left home at age 17 in 1978 and had not contacted the family in more than 20 years. The Globe has reported that Rockefeller also appears to have used other aliases after arriving in the United States in the late 1970s.

Authorities are particuarly interested in whether Rockefeller is Christopher Chichester, a young man who lived at a house in San Marino, Calif., where John and Linda Sohus disappeared in 1985. Human remains were found at the house in 1994.

Hrones conceded that Rockefeller, who allegedly kidnapped Reigh Storrow Mills Boss on July 27 but was arrested on Saturday in Baltimore, used an alias while on the run after kidnapping his daughter.

"Just because someone uses aliases doesn't mean they are guilty of anything,'' he said.

Hrones said Rockefeller was an excellent father and that their legal strategy when he goes on trial will be to contend that the custody issue should have been settled under English, not Massachusetts law, because Sandra L. Boss, the child's mother and Rockefeller's ex-wife, lives in England.

Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said the divorce ruling was clear in giving the mother custody of the child.

Wark said that law enforcement continues its own investigation into Rockefeller's identity, but has not yet finished its work.

"Identification standards are extremely high for law enforcement purposes,'' he said. "They need to be checked, double-checked, supported and verified by every means possible."

Until that process is complete, he said, prosecutors will not be commenting on news reports about Rockefeller's various aliases.

Hrones said some friends of Rockefeller, who is being held without bail, are being given permission to meet with him.The lawyer would not identify the people by name.

Hrones said Rockefeller had expected to avoid capture and now realizes that he has severely reduced his chances of ever seeing his daughter again. "He realizes that nobody is going to allow her to communicate with him at this time,'' he said. "He doesn't even know where she is.''

Hrones said that, as far as he is concerned, his client is Clark Rockefeller. "He tells me he's Clark Rockefeller. I believe him. I haven't been shown any hard evidence that's he's something other than what he tells me he is," Hrones said.