'Rockefeller' jury asks questions about false name charge

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

The jury deliberating the fate of the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller asked a series of questions this afternoon about the least serious charge in the case.

The 16-member Suffolk Superior Court jury had been deliberating for three hours when they asked Judge Frank Gaziano about the charge that Rockefeller gave a false name to the police when he was arrested.

Prosecutors alleged that his real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter and that he is a con man who came to the United States as a German exchange student in 1978 and never left. The defense does not question the defendant's German identity, but they say that he had been using the name Rockefeller for more than a decade when police arrested him in Baltimore last summer.

This afternoon the jury wanted to know, among other things, whether the defendant was legally required to give his birth name in addition to his assumed name when he was arrested. The judge said the defendant did not have to give his birth name as long as he was not supplying his assumed name for dishonest purposes.

It was unknown whether the jury had considered the other charges yet. Rockefeller is accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter last summer after a bitter custody dispute.

The jury went home today at 4 p.m. and is scheduled to continue its deliberations in the morning.