The jurors, who began deliberating Monday, rejected the theory put forth by Gerhartsreiter's lawyers: that he was suffering from a delusional disorder and was legally insane. Prosecutors called the diagnosis "preposterous" and said he planned the kidnapping for months because he was angry that his wife had divorced him and gained custody of their daughter, Reigh Boss.
Gerhartsreiter also was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for ordering the driver of an SUV to pull away with a social worker clinging to the door. The jury acquitted him on another assault count and on a charge of giving a false name to police.
Judge Frank Graziano sentenced him to four to five years in state prison on the parental kidnapping count and a concurrent two to three years on the assault charge, for which he could have faced up to 10 years.
Graziano said he considered Rockefeller's attachment to his daughter and his "despair" over losing her, but also his disregard for the law and lack of empathy for the girl, his ex-wife and the social worker.
"The defendant was by all accounts a loving and devoted father to his daughter," he said. But he said Gerhartsreiter has a "long and well-documented history of deceit" that included an attempt to "outmaneuver" his ex-wife by taking an $800,000 divorce settlement from her and then planning for months to take their daughter.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Denner had asked for a maximum sentence of two years, saying his client was a "mentally disturbed individual who as a father loved his daughter too much" and never intended to hurt her.
District Attorney Daniel Conley called the verdict "fair and just" and said hoped it gives Gerhartsreiter's ex-wife Sandra Boss and her daughter "some sense of justice."
In a statement read in court by Assistant District Attorney David Deakin, Boss said she has struggled to find normalcy for her and her daughter.
"The long-term effects of the abduction are yet to be known, but anxiety about Reigh's safety and protection ... will certainly be the most lasting," she said.
Jurors appeared sober and tense as the verdict was delivered. They later returned to the courtroom and foreman Michael Gregory, a Harvard Law School lecturer who specializes in the impact of domestic violence on children's learning, read a statement saying jurors are "confident that our verdict is fair and just and based on the information that we were legally allowed to consider."
After his arrest, authorities revealed that the man with the storied Rockefeller name was really a German national who had used multiple aliases since moving to the United States and was a "person of interest" in the 1985 disappearance and presumed slayings of a newlywed couple from San Marino, Calif.
A California grand jury has been hearing evidence in the disappearance of Linda and Jonathan Sohus. Gerhartsreiter, who was then using the name Christopher Chichester, was living in a guest house on their property when they disappeared. He has not been charged in the case.
Prosecutors asked the judge as part of the sentence to order Gerhartsreiter to undergo psychiatric evaluation, not to profit from his history or crimes and to be on 20 years probation. The judge did not impose those conditions.
