BOSTON — A German man who called himself Clark Rockefeller and spun fantastic stories about himself during three decades in the United States was convicted Friday of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter and sentenced to four to five years in prison.
Rockefeller, whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, snatched the girl on a Boston street during a supervised visit in July and took her to Baltimore.
The jurors, who began deliberating Monday, rejected the theory put forth by Gerhartsreiter’s attorneys: that he was suffering from a delusional disorder and was legally insane.
Prosecutors called the diagnosis “preposterous” and said he planned the kidnapping for months because he was angry that his wife had divorced him and gained custody of their daughter, Reigh Boss.
Gerhartsreiter also was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for ordering the driver of a car to pull away with a social worker clinging to the door. The jury acquitted him on another assault count and on a charge of giving a false name to police.
