Federal trial about the sinking of Nathan Carman’s boat opens Tuesday in Providence courtroom

Aug. 13--The federal trial pitting Nathan Carman against the insurance company that refuses to pay off its policy on the sinking of his boat that cost his mother her life opens today in federal court.

U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell is restricting the trial to just issues surrounding the insurance claim for the boat and not larger questions about the disappearance of Carman's mother or the murder of his grandfather.

National Liability & Fire Insurance Co. and the Boat Owners Association of the United States sued Nathan Carman in federal court after refusing to pay his $85,000 claim after his boat, the Chicken Pox, sank in September of 2016. The boat was lost as was his mother Linda Carman, who is missing and presumed dead.

Nathan Carman was rescued by a passing freighter eight days later, floating in a raft near Martha's Vineyard.

His three aunts have accused Nathan Carman of sinking the boat to kill his mother, and the murder of their father John Chakalos three years earlier, under a scheme to inherit $7 million from the Chakalos estate.

Lawyers for the insurance company had been planning to call several witnesses to testify about the murder and also numerous witnesses who were going to cast doubt on Carman's version of how and where his boat sank.

McConnell last week said he would bar any evidence about the Chakalos murder and restricted the case to why the company didn't pay the the insurance claim.

In his order McConnell also set strict guidelines for the trial. Each side is limited to 15 hours total of direct examination, cross examination, objections and openings and closings. McConnell said he will keep a chess clock on his desk to keep track.

The ruling is the second time in the last few months a judge has prevented Carmen, under oath, from telling his version of the night his grandfather was murdered and the ill-fated fishing trip where he lost his mother. In June, a probate judge in New Hampshire dismissed a "slayer petition" filed by his three aunts -- Valerie Santilli, Elaine Chakalos and Charlene Gallagher -- that accused Carman of killing his grandfather in 2013 and of orchestrating the disappearance of his mother, in order to get all of the inheritance.

Carman himself likely will still have to testify about the changes that he made to his boat before setting sail with his mother to fish for tuna in Block Canyon.

Carman has admitted to making changes to the boat the day before the ill-fated voyage, including removing the boat's "trim tabs," which are critical for navigation. Carman has acknowledged drilling holes dangerously close to the water line to remove the tabs and filling them with an epoxy. He also has said he replaced a bilge pump before that trip.

After the sinking, the insurance company denied his claim, arguing that the changes made the boat unseaworthy and it sank because of Carman's actions.

David Farrell, the lawyer who is representing the insurance companies, had planned to call the lead detective from the Windsor Police Department to testify about the investigation into the Dec. 20, 2013, murder of Chakalos as well as a ballistics expert and an employee of the New Hampshire gun shop where Carman bought a Sig Sauer rifle.

Chakalos was found in his Windsor home shot in the back of the head. Police tried to get an arrest warrant charging Carman with the murder, but a judge refused to sign it and the case has remained open. Police have said that Carman is still a person of interest.

The bullets used in the murder are similar to what a Sig Sauer rifle would fire. Carman paid more than $2,000 for the rifle a month before the murder and has said that he has since lost it.

Farrell planned to call not only the clerk who sold Carman the rifle in 2013, but also a ballistics expert to testify about whether the gun could have been the murder weapon.

Linda Carman was lost at sea in September 2016 while tuna fishing with her son off the coast of Long Island in an area known as Block Canyon. Carman told authorities that the boat started taking on water and sank quickly and that he managed to jump onto a life raft -- but that he didn't see what happened to his mother.

Carman didn't activate the emergency beacon on his boat, despite having opportunity to do so. He was rescued eight days later by a freighter that saw his raft floating about 600 miles off Martha's Vineyard.

In the New Hampshire case, Judge David King dismissed the petition in a last-minute decision just before the trial was to begin, ruling that John Chakalos was really a resident of Connecticut and not New Hampshire, and therefore the aunts had no standing to file the case in New Hampshire. The three sisters have appealed King's ruling to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, where it is still pending.

Law enforcement officials have been monitoring both legal cases and were expected to have representatives at both trials to hear Carman testify about the murder and the boat sinking.

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