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Defense: Rockefeller lived in 'magical, insane world'

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 28, 2009 02:21 PM

By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

Clark Rockefeller's meticulous scheme to kidnap his 7-year-old daughter required months of painstaking planning. He bought a home in Baltimore under the fake identity of a Peruvian ship captain, hid his $800,000 divorce settlement in gold coins, lined up three getaway vehicles, and told tall tales to get unwitting accomplices involved in the effort, one of whom thought he was driving Rockefeller that Sunday to Newport, R.I., to go sailing with the son of Senator Chafee.

Clark Rockefeller

Defense lawyer Jeffrey A. Denner did not contradict any of those fantastic details laid out today in the prosecution's opening statement, which painted the picture of a man who told lies about wealth, aristocracy, and being admitted to Yale University at age 14.

In fact, Denner went further than the prosecution, saying his client believed he was communicating telepathically with his daughter and, "she was saying she needed to be saved." Denner described the "magical, insane world" of Rockefeller, one that included a long string of identities and aliases stretching 30 years, from when he emigrated from his native Germany under his birth name, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter.

Unlike the prosecution, however, Denner argued that his client was "not just some con man trying to make a quick buck selling aluminum siding to someone and then not showing up." Instead, he told the jury that they will hear testimony from two mental health experts that Rockefeller suffered from a "such fundamental mental illness" that his increasingly grandiose lies sealed him off from his own memories.

Rockefeller became so ill, Denner said, that he finally ended "with the notion that he was a Rockefeller, had billions of dollars worth of art, had keys to Rockefeller Center, and so many other things that are so blatantly, blatantly ridiculous to anyone other than [someone] in the throes of this type of mental illness."

As the attorneys unraveled Rockefeller's lifetime of lies, he sat in his blue blazer and red repp tie and stared blankly straight ahead, his face tilted slightly away from the jury. Rockefeller showed no reaction during the 90-minute opening statements, the corners of his mouth turned downward in what almost looked like a frown.

Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David A. Deakin told a very different story than the defense when he described Rockefeller and the kidnapping. Regardless of the fantasies, Deakin argued, the case comes down to Sandra Boss. She is a mother who had her daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, kidnapped by her former husband on Marlborough Street in Back Bay during a supervised visit on July 27.

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"For the next seven days she waited in Boston not knowing when or if she would see her daughter again," Deakin said. "That is what this case is about."

Deakin walked the jury through Rockefeller's long and complex web of deception: from his first marriage in Wisconsin in 1981 for a Green Card to his made-up job restructuring debt for tiny nations and his wooing of Boss, a woman he met at a New York City church function through her identical twin sister. During the courtship, Deakin said, Rockefeller was "intelligent, witty, and exceptionally persistent."

Rockefeller continued his lies, Deakin said, through marriage, separation, pregnancy, and moves that took the family from New York City to Nantucket, Vermont, Cornish, N.H., and finally Boston's Back Bay. The marriage eventually dissolved, however, and during the divorce Boss hired a private investigator who learned the truth: that Rockefeller's entire identity -- from his storied last name to the claim that his parents died in a car accident -- was a lie.

Faced with the truth, Deakin said, Rockefeller agreed to give up custody of his daughter and settle the divorce for a one-time $800,000 payment. Boss took their daughter and moved to London and Rockefeller began laying the groundwork for his elaborate kidnapping scheme, Deakin said.

"He knew that it was against the law and he knew it was wrong, but he planned meticulously over months to make that happen," Deakin said. "In his mind, the rules don't apply to Christian Gerhartsreiter, but in a court of law the rules apply to everyone equally."

Denner argued, however, that the real question before the jury was not what Rockefeller did.

"This case is not so much about what actually happened," Denner said, "but why it happened and what was the defendant's mindset �. this is a person whose illness deepened over time, intensified over time, and had the effect of essentially sealing himself off from who he was and his memory of who he was."

Denner continued, "The irony was that his daughter, his daughter was the only thing that offered him hope in the reality of his life. Without her, he was nothing."

After an international manhunt last summer, FBI agents arrested Rockefeller six days after the kidnapping in Baltimore, and the girl was safely returned to her mother. He faces charges of parental kidnapping, assault on the social worker supervising the visitation, and providing a false name to police.

Prosecutors say Rockefeller used a slew of aliases and upper-crust identities over the past 30 years to ingratiate himself into tony circles in the United States. California authorities have also labeled the defendant a "person of interest" in the 1985 disappearance and presumed killings of a California couple, John and Linda Sohus, in San Marino, an affluent Los Angeles suburb. The jury is not expected to hear about that matter because it would prejudice his case in Boston.

Rockefeller has pleaded not guilty to the charges by reason of insanity. On Tuesday a forensic psychologist testified in a pretrial hearing and offered a preview of the alleged con man's defense, saying he suffers from two mental illnesses marked by delusions of grandeur and narcissism.

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

The prosecution plans to call its own mental health expert this afternoon to testify on whether statements Rockefeller gave to police and the media were voluntary. The motion hearing will take place after opening arguments and testimony in the morning. The judge has given no timetable for his ruling.

The case will be heard by a 16-member jury, dominated by college-age people, nine women and seven men. The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.