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Expert testifies Rockefeller/Gerhartsreiter has two mental illnesses

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 27, 2009 05:27 PM

(Pool photo)

"Rockefeller" entering the courtroom this morning.

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

A forensic psychologist gave a glimpse today into the insanity defense planned by the alleged con man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller, saying at a pretrial hearing in Suffolk Superior Court that the defendant suffered from two mental illnesses marked by delusions of grandeur and narcissism.

Testifying outside the presence of a newly selected jury and before Thursday's scheduled opening statements, Catherine T.J. Howe, a forensic psychologist from Salem, said she interviewed Rockefeller for 16 hours over two months at the Nashua Street Jail and gave him a battery of tests. She diagnosed him as having delusional disorder, grandiose type, and narcissistic personality disorder.

"My opinion is Mr. Rockefeller does have a substantial disorder of thought which does impair his judgment," said Howe, who is a defense witness.

Prosecutors say "Rockefeller" is really a Bavarian con man named Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter. Gerhartsreiter made headlines when he allegedly kidnapped his 7-year-old daughter in August, fleeing with her to Baltimore before being arrested. As officials and media outlets dug into Gerhartsreiter's past, revealing that he had assumed several different names since his arrival in the United States, the story drew international attention. And the story took a dark twist when Los Angeles authorities named him a person of interest in the disappearance of a young couple there in the 1980s.

Because of his mental illnesses, Howe, the forensic psychologist testified, Gerhartsreiter lacked the judgment to authorize investigators to interview him at the FBI field office in Baltimore on Aug. 2, 2008, hours after his arrest for allegedly abducting his daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss from a Back Bay street. His illness also prompted him to accept the questionable advice of a former defense lawyer and consent to tape-recorded interviews with the Globe and an NBC television reporter soon after his arrest, she said.

"It would be incredibly hard for someone with a narcissistic personality disorder to say no to someone who said you're so important that I need to talk to you on camera," Howe said in response to questions by one of the defendant's current lawyers, Jeffrey A. Denner, of Boston.

She later added, "This is a gentleman who does not stop talking."

But Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David A. Deakin, grilling Howe, noted that Gerhartsreiter made many statements during his taped interview with investigators that were grounded in reality, even though they might reflect poorly on him. He told investigators he never enrolled in college, that he was worried about losing his daughter, and that, in Deakin's words, "It's fun to shoot off your mouth, especially if everyone believes you."

Howe replied that even people who suffer from delusions can make truthful and rational comments.