BOSTON — At least he was straight. We think.
As the kidnapping trial of the man who called himself Clark Rockefeller gets under way in this frigid town, now might be a fine occasion for all desperate, lonely cat ladies to review the men sleeping next to them.
The single, age-appropriate character who called himself Clark, but really is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, claimed to own billions in artwork and possess actual keys to Rockefeller Center. I hear that one all the time.
He also said his famous parents, George Percy Rockefeller and a mom named either Mary or Anna — details! — died in a car wreck.
Moreover, he seems to enjoy the majority of his teeth.
But the guy, who ultimately earned his keep by performing the untidy chore of changing diapers, had nary a pot to pee in, and no prospects for buying one.
Which makes one wonder: Haven’t Bostonians discovered the wisdom of Google?
His wife, so goes the claim, was the last to know. Sandra Boss, described as a brilliant, if absent, businesswoman, never asked questions of her hub as she jetted between assignments, leaving a stranger in charge of the kid they bred. For a long time, it suited Sandra to have Clark raise the child.
She didn’t suspect her husband was a fraud.
Or did she?
There are two people who should be on trial here in Beantown for a crime that alternately shocked and tickled America. One is Gerhart-whatsis, who loved, raised and schooled his daughter until his wife, finally growing suspicious after more than a decade, decided to cut him out. He then is accused of “snapping” — and masterminding the frightening disappearance of his little girl, Reigh.
But Sandra Boss shouldn’t get off the hook. She’s unquestionably guilty of stupidity in the first degree.
Either that, or, even more likely, something even worse. She really didn’t want to know.
Yesterday, the man now known as Crockefeller sat at the defense table. His eyes rested on a projected photograph of the little girl whom he was described, cryptically, as being “unusually close to.” He hasn’t seen the child in almost a year.
Crock almost seemed to doze as defense lawyers made the absurd claim that he was insane when he meticulously planned decades of deception, then carried out an elaborate plan to kidnap Reigh, hiring cars and renting an apartment in Baltimore, where he was eventually busted.
One who doubts his crazy claim is Sandra Boss’ father, William, 77.
“We’re all crazy to a person,” he told me. “You can be responsible for what you do. Look — I’m an engineer, I’m not a psychiatrist!
But a person can be well aware what they did was illegal.”
But he grew defensive at suggestions that his daughter might in some way be culpable.
“How could someone so brilliant and responsible be duped by somebody? That suggests the victim is at fault. I reject that concept.”
He forgets there’s another victim here. Reigh.
She doesn’t deserve this.