‘Rockefeller’ wins battle to block comments

BOSTON - The man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller has won a court fight to keep jurors from hearing most of his four-hour interrogation after a judge ruled that investigators persisted even though he had invoked his right to remain silent.

Rockefeller, a German whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, is charged with kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter during a supervised visit in July in Boston, leading to an international manhunt. He was found with the unharmed girl in Baltimore six days later.

He claimed he told investigators 14 minutes into the interrogation the day he was found that he didn’t want to talk.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano agreed in a ruling made public Monday that Gerhartsreiter had “clearly and unequivocally” invoked his right to remain silent, but that investigators continued to interrogate him.

Gerhartsreiter, 48, is to go on trial next month. Authorities said he used aliases after moving to the United States in the late 1970s to work his way into wealthy circles in Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

Gerhartsreiter’s lawyers said he told investigators at the beginning of the interrogation that he was willing to speak to them “within a limited extent.” He said he was distraught over his daughter and how he had lost custody of the girl to his ex-wife seven months earlier.