'Clark Rockefeller' Lawyers File to Have Verdict Thrown Out

Lawyer says judge, witness erred with respect to insanity plea.

ByABC News
June 2, 2009, 11:29 AM

BOSTON June 26, 2009— -- Lawyers for the man known as 'Clark Rockefeller' have requested a new trial, citing judicial errors and what the defense maintains was an unqualified mental health expert.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the conman who posed as a member of the famed Rockefeller family for decades was sentenced to a maximum of five years in a Massachusetts state prison earlier this month after being found guilty of kidnapping his daughter and assaulting a social worker with a dangerous weapon.

Lawyers had maintained during the trial that the German immigrant was insane and suffering from delusions when he took off with daughter Reigh "Snooks" Boss last July.

In the court papers filed in Suffolk County, Mass., the defense argues that Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frank Gazianon erred by not providing "curative instruction" to the jury after the prosecution's closing arguments to remind jurors that Gerhartsreiter's defense was a sound one.

Prosecutors told the jury in closing arguments that the notion that Gerhartsreiter was insane at the time of his crimes was simply another attempt at manipulation, something his lawyer Jeffrey Denner said "goes beyond the pale."

"I would have asked him to say the insanity defense is a legitimate defense in the state of Massachusetts," Denner told ABCNews.com today.

The motions, which were filed last week and unsealed Thursday, also contend that the court erred when it let the jury consider testimony from the state's mental health expert, Dr. James Chu, who Denner contends gave inaccurate and inarticulate definitions of mental illness and criminal responsibility.

Suffolk County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Erikia Gully-Santiago told ABCNews.com today the her office has received the motion and intends to respond within the 60 days allotted.

"The issued raised in this motion were raised by defense counsel during the trial," she said, "and the judge ruled in the Commonwealth's favor."

Denner said his client is struggling inside the walls of prison where he is housed with criminals convicted of much more violent crimes than he.

"He's not in a particularly pleasant place," Denner said.