Bail Reduction Denied For Gerhartsreiter

BOSTON -- A reduction in bail was denied Thursday for Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller, who is accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter in Boston.

Gerhartsreiter's attorney, Stephen Hrones, asked for his client's $50 million bail to be reduced, but a judge denied the request, according to the district attorney's office.

Bail Reduction Denied For Gerhartsreiter

Judge D. Lloyd Macdonald rejected defense suggestions to outfit Gerhartsreiter with a GPS monitoring bracelet, saying, "there have been numerous instances of persons removing" the devices.

"(Gerhartsreiter) has demonstrated a very ingenious capacity to transform himself and maneuver his way around this country and the world through deception and the exercise of an obviously powerful intelligence," he said. "It’s clear to this court that what’s in the best interest of the public is for him to be held by the sheriff until his trial."

Gerhartsreiter pleaded not guilty earlier this week to charges that he kidnapped his daughter, Reigh, while on a supervised visit in July.

During his arraignment, prosecutors recounted a partial list of aliases Gerhartsreiter has used since he came to the United States from his native Germany on a student visa in 1978 including Christopher Chichester, Christopher Crowe, Christopher Mountbatten, Michael Brown, Clark Rockefeller and others.

The prosecutor also recounted a handful of the many fabrications he told to friends and acquaintances -- that his family lost its fortune in a lawsuit brought by the Department of Defense; that his parents had died in a car crash when he was a child or, alternatively, that they died recently overseas; that he attended Yale at age 14 through a program for gifted children; that he worked in debt restructuring for small nations; and that he was involved in academic research into space travel.

Gerhartsreiter is due in court on Oct. 30 for a pre-trial conference, and the trial is scheduled to begin on March 23.