< Back to front page Text size – +

Rockefeller defense begins with psychologist

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 3, 2009 01:31 PM

(AP Photo/Ted Fitzgerald, Pool)

Forensic psychologist Catherine T.J. Howe pointed to a chart today in Suffolk Superior Court.

By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

A forensic psychologist for the defense testified today that the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller suffers from extraordinary narcissism and delusions caused by acute mental illness that impaired "his ability to recognize the wrongfulness of his actions."

Clark Rockefeller

Catherine T.J. Howe told the jury that Rockefeller underlying illness is narcissistic personality disorder, a condition diagnosed when a person displays five out of nine criteria, which include having a grandiose sense of self importance and being preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success and power.

"What's fascinating about Mr. Rockefeller is that not only does he meet five or more, he meets all nine of the criteria," Howe said. "What is also interesting is that not only does he meet all nine, he meets it to such a significant extent. If there is a continuum of narcissistic personality disorder, he is on the far end of the continuum."

Rockefeller's narcissism was reinforced when people "believed any of his fantastical stories," Howe said, and the disease got worse and led to delusions.

"At some point his grandiosity, his narcissism … became so intense that his world, his reality, was not the reality that everybody else would have seen," Howe said. "But people believed him, and he believed it, and therefore it became a delusion."

Rockefeller has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh, last summer after a bitter divorce and custody dispute. Prosecutors say he is really a Bavarian con man named Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 48, who has used a slew of aliases to ingratiate himself in aristocratic circles.

Rockefeller sat hunched slightly forward on his elbows at the defense table. He wore the blue blazer and red repp tie that have become his uniform during trial. Before the jury entered the courtroom this morning, Rockefeller appeared to be mumbling to himself, his mouth and chin moving rapidly despite his tightly clenched jaw.

Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David A. Deakin challenged Howe's diagnosis under cross examination. Deakin asked about the possibility of a "hypothetical stone liar" whose stories become increasingly elaborate when confronted with his lies.

Howe interviewed Rockefeller for 16 hours over two months at Nashua Street Jail and gave him a battery of tests. The Salem psychologist has diagnosed him as having "delusional disorder, grandiose type," and "narcissistic personality disorder."

While cross-examining Howe, Deakin also ticked off the many aliases and bogus identities that the defendant used since he came to the United States three decades ago, including Christian Gerharts Reiter, when he was a high school student in Connecticut; Dr. Reiter, a cardiovascular surgeon in Las Vegas; and both C. Mountbatten and Christopher C. Crowe, when he was living in Greenwich, Conn.

Then, noting that Howe had written in an early diagnosis that Rockefeller might represent a "diagnosis unto himself," Deakin held up the telephone-book-sized Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders with an outstretched arm and asked a final series of questions.

"And there's no diagnosis in here for liar?" Deakin asked.

"There's a diagnosis for malingering,'' she replied, fakery she had ruled out in the defendant's case.

But no diagnosis for liar? Deakin asked again.

"There's nothing in there under that word, no,'' Howe responded.

The defense is also expected to call Dr. Keith Ablow, a Newburyport forensic psychiatrist who also writes thrillers, is a commentator for Fox News, and blogged and publicly commented on the case shortly after the arrest.

Rockefeller's former wife, Sandra Boss, gave two hours of riveting testimony under cross-examination on Tuesday about why she accepted his fantastic stories.

"There is a difference between intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence," Boss said in a firm voice. "I'm not saying I made a very good choice of husband," Boss said. "It's pretty obvious that I had a blind spot. All I'm saying is that it's possible that one can be brilliant and amazing in one area of one's life and pretty stupid in another."