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Prosecution expert: Rockefeller exaggerates mental illness

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 4, 2009 12:17 PM

By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

A psychiatrist for the prosecution testified today that the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller exaggerated his symptoms of mental illness and is legally sane despite his decades of bizarre behavior.

Clark Rockefeller

Dr. James A. Chu, a psychiatrist from Harvard's McLean Hospital, took particular aim at Rockefeller's answers to a 28-item written questionnaire known as the Disassociated Experience Scale. Rockefeller claimed that 70 percent of the time he found himself somewhere and had no idea how he had gotten there. If that were really the case, Chu said, Rockefeller would be unable to function.

"There was very clear evidence, at least in my judgment, as to a certain amount of exaggeration of symptoms,'' Chu said under questioning by Suffolk Assistant District Attorney David A. Deakin. The defendant's answers "were much more consistent with untruthful responses or exaggerated responses.''

Chu also took issue with the diagnosis by the defense's two mental health experts, who found that Rockefeller suffered from narcissistic personality disorder and grandiose delusions. Those underlying mental illnesses, the defense claimed, caused him to believe a slew of fantasies and left him unable to understand that kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter was wrong.

Chu diagnosed Rockefeller as having mixed personality disorder with narcissistic and antisocial personality traits. The affliction, however, did not give him the inability to tell right from wrong.

"I couldn’t find anything other than that he is responsible for the criminal activity that he is charged with," Chu said, adding that Rockefeller's "planning it and then trying to conceal it afterward made me think that he knew what he was doing was wrong."

Rockefeller has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges stemming from the alleged kidnapping last summer. The case has attracted international media attention because the defendant has invented a slew of extraordinary aliases over the last 30 years, including his most recent incarnation as a member of the storied Rockefeller clan. Prosecutors say he is really a German native named Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 48, who never left the United States after coming as an exchange student in the 1970s.

The defense tried to undercut Chu's conclusion by pointing out the he has never been trained in forensics as psychiatrist. Chu acknowledged that the 2 1/2 hours he spent with Rockefeller was the first time he had evaluated a defendant for criminal responsibility in jail in his 33 years as a doctor of practice. Chu also admitted that he lacked an understanding of a key component of the insanity defense, which places the burden on the prosecution to prove the defendant was sane when a crime was committed.

This morning defense expert Dr. Keith Ablow added another piece to the Rockefeller puzzle when he described a discussion he had with him about his real father in Germany. The forensic psychiatrist recounted for the jury how Rockefeller spoke of his father's extraordinary antipathy for him, taking away things he loved, such as musical instruments, and questioning his sexuality as a child.

"He openly questioned whether Mr. Rockefeller might be a homosexual in front of him as a boy," said Ablow, a forensic psychiatrist from Newburyport.

Rockefeller's father also questioned in front of his mother whether he was really his son, Ablow said.

Deakin challenged Ablow's revelations about the defendant's past. Deakin pointed out that Ablow had no independent corroboration of Rockefeller's claims.