Rockfeller Trial Continues

The Boston Herald is posting daily articles about the trial of Christian Gerharstreiter aka Clark Rockefeller on charges of kidnapping his daughter last July. The prosecution and defense have wrangled over numerous procedural issues, including what name Gerharstreiter will be called by the judge, leading to a peculiar decision:

The con man known internationally by a half dozen aliases – but mainly as Clark Rockefeller – will essentially have no name at his trial.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today ruled that Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter – living in the United States under the name Clark Rockefeller since 1983 – will simply be know as “the defendant.”

Judge Frank Gaziano’s decision did not sit well with Rockefellers’s defense team, even though Gerhartsreiter, 48, a German national, is the name for which he was indicted on charges stemming from the July 27 kidnapping of his then 7-year-old daughter Reigh “Snooks” Boss during a supervised visit in the Back Bay while his ex-wife Sandra Boss of London waited at a Boston hotel.

Gerhartsreiter’s defense is that he was insane or suffering from a “mental defect” at the time. Several psychologists are testifying.

Prosecutors have agreed not to tell the jury that ‘Rockefeller’ is a “person of interest” in the 1985 disappearance of a California couple, LASFS members Linda Mayfield and John Sohus.

[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]