Is anyone following the 'Clark Rockefeller' case?

[lavenderdiva]

It gets weirder yet more interesting by the day. Yesterday, I read that someone in Germany came forward and identified this man with many monikers as his long lost brother. The brother's name is Alexander Gerhartsreiter which I find interesting, in that many of 'Clark Rockefeller's early pseudonyms are variations of 'Gerhartsreiter'. Here's a link to the story:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/08/rockefeller.internat.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

Seems he may be involved somehow in a murder many years ago....

[livetohike]

1. Only what I saw on the teevee

It looks like good material for a true crime book, though.

[lavenderdiva]

2. I think it would make a good read too--

Apparently, he's giving a TV interview this week on Dateline and the Today show -- should be interesting...

[lavenderdiva]

3. Rockefeller impersonator to go on trial for kidnapping

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/us/26rockefeller.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

snip:
BOSTON — He told stories of growing up on Manhattan’s Sutton Place, of getting into Yale at 14 and of his work as an astrophysicist, venture capitalist or movie producer, depending on his whim.

And Boston listened.

To his wife and everyone else here, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter was known as Clark Rockefeller — presumably a member of one of the nation’s richest and most storied families.

But that persona disintegrated on a Back Bay street last summer when, on his first custody visit with his daughter after a bitter divorce, Mr. Gerhartsreiter pushed aside a social worker who was supervising, jumped into a waiting car with the 7-year-old girl and fled. That led to an international manhunt and, prosecutors say, the unveiling of a life’s worth of spectacular lies.

This most erudite of cities, where Mr. Gerhartsreiter had made his home since 2006, will be watching closely when he goes on trial here this week, seeking an explanation of how he could have fooled his former wife, a graduate of Harvard Business School, and so many others for so long.

snip:
A poll of 300 Suffolk County residents, commissioned by the defense, found that 77 percent knew about the kidnapping case, according to court documents. Of those, the poll found, half believed that Mr. Gerhartsreiter was guilty.

But Judge Gaziano refused to move the trial, writing, “The fact that a juror has been exposed to pretrial publicity does not mean that the juror is no longer impartial.”

The judge also said the defense was partly to blame for its predicament, writing that Mr. Gerhartsreiter’s “calculated efforts to court media attention diminish the argument” for moving the trial.

Should be interesting. I suspect that the pretrial publicity issue will be an appeals basis for the defense. I agree with the assessment of the judge however, that 'Clark' was the one going after the interviews. I saw something about this case on 48 Hours I think, some time ago. He certainly had a lot of people hood-winked.