Bail set at $50M for fake Rockefeller

BOSTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- A Boston court set bail at $50 million Monday for an impostor who claimed to be from the old-money Rockefeller family even as new allegations of abuse surfaced.

Prosecutors said Sandra Lynn Boss ended her marriage to German national Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, 47, who called himself Clark Rockefeller, after 13 years of marriage that included "emotional and occasional physical abuse," the Boston Herald reported.

After that revelation and the defendant's not guilty plea, Suffolk Superior Court trial Magistrate Gary D. Wilson set the multimillion-dollar cash bail.

Defense attorney Stephen Hrones is expected to argue for a lower amount at a hearing Thursday. He said his client, who is to face trial March 23, 2009, isn't a flight risk since he has no passport "and he's recognizable by everyone in this country. Imagine if he tried to leave."

Gerhartsreiter was arrested in July for allegedly abducting the former couple's 7-year-old daughter, Reigh "Snooks" Boss, during a supervised visit.

He also remains a person of interest in the 1985 disappearance of a California couple who were his landlords, the Herald said.