Can Con Man Rockefeller Stay in the U.S.?

BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2008 — -- Immigration officials have joined the investigation into whether an accused con man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller is living legally in the United States after authorities positively linked Rockefeller to German native Christian Gerhartsreiter.

A fingerprint lifted from a wine glass used by Rockefeller hours before he allegedly abducted his daughter last month was matched to immigration papers that authorities said Gerhartsreiter filed 27 years ago when coming to the United States from Germany.

"This is the strongest evidence we have had yet as to who [Rockefeller] is and where he has been," said Suffolk County District Attorney spokesman Dan Conley at a press conference in Boston today.

Conley went on to refer to Rockefeller's capers as "the largest con I have ever seen in my professional career," adding that the events of the case are "out of crime novel or out of a movie."

Authorities said they will amend the complaint on kidnapping, assault and battery charges to include Rockefeller's real name, Christian Gerhartsreiter.

Asked how Rockefeller funded his life on the run, Tom Lee, the Boston police deputy superintendent, responded, "I think he married his money," an apparent reference to his former wife, Sandra Boss, an Ivy League educated business consultant now living in London.

As for deportation, Matt Etri, deputy special agent in charge for immigration and customs enforcement, said that until a warrant is obtained, Rockefeller will remain in a Boston jail.

Earlier this week, federal agents traveled to the German town where they believe Rockefeller was born and raised as Gerhartsreiter.

Authorities unraveling Rockefeller's byzantine back story believe that he swooped into Southern California high society in the mid-1980s under the name of Christopher Chichester, only to leave as a person of interest in the disappearance of a newlywed couple he lived with. Before that, he apparently arrived in Connecticut from Germany for an exchange program in 1978 under the name Christian Gerhartstreiter, police sources said.

Rockefeller continues to stonewall investigators probing his foggy past.

"It has grown abundantly clear that Christopher Chichester is Christian Gerhartsreiter," said a high-ranking Boston police official with direct knowledge of the investigation. "It appears that Clark Rockefeller is also Gerhartsreiter."

Suffolk County District Attorney spokesman Conley, who will prosecute Rockefeller on custodial kidnapping and assault charges tied to the abduction of his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh, during a supervised parental visit in Boston July 27, said that mystery man's profile is becoming increasingly clear.

"The investigation has grown more focused by the day and even by the hour,'' Jake Wark, spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, told ABC News.

A task force of Boston Police Department detectives, Los Angeles investigators, FBI agents, immigration officials and prosecutors is working to solidify information about Rockefeller's German heritage, which was first reported by ABC News Wednesday evening.

Since his arrest, Rockefeller had been described to ABC News as a "ghost" by one Boston police investigator, an "enigma" by an FBI special agent and a "mystery man" by Suffolk County, Mass., prosecutors. Prosecutors have not found a driver's license, Social Security number or any work or educational history for the man.

It came to light Friday morning that Rockefeller's birth brother appears to have been located in Bergen, Germany, according to separate reports published in The Boston Globe and Boston Herald.