Fake German Rockefeller guilty of kidnapping in US

By Kevin McNicholas

BOSTON (Reuters) - A German man who posed as a member of America's wealthy Rockefeller family was convicted by a jury on Friday on a charge of kidnapping his young daughter in Boston last year following a bitter divorce.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who used a number of aliases including Clark Rockefeller, also was found guilty of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon as jurors rejected defense arguments that the 48-year-old defendant was insane.

Dressed in a white shirt, blue blazer and red tie, Gerhartsreiter stared grim-faced as the verdict was read in court. He is due to be sentenced later on Friday.

The kidnapping charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison while the assault and battery charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

The Suffolk County District Attorney, Dan Conley, said he was satisfied with the verdict in which jurors convicted Gerhartsreiter on the two most serious charges. The jurors, who had deliberated since Monday, acquitted him of giving police a false name and a second charge of assault and battery.

Gerhartsreiter grabbed his 7-year-old daughter on his first visit with the girl in July 2008 after a contentious divorce, pushed aside the supervising social worker, and sped off as the social worker held onto the moving sport utility vehicle.

After a six-day international manhunt, police found Gerhartsreiter and his daughter, Reigh, in Baltimore where the man told authorities he had hoped to begin a new life.

Authorities said Gerhartsreiter, who left Bavaria in the 1970s, posed as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, whose fortune came from the oil business and other ventures.