Insurance lawyers: Nathan Carman lied

Dec. 23--Nathan Carman, a Vermont man whose mother disappeared when his boat mysteriously sank at sea, is accused of lying about repairs made to his fishing vessel and misrepresenting where the doomed boat plunged into the sea in order to hide evidence.

Lawyers for the company that insured the boat argued in a legal document filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island that Carman's misrepresentations should void his $85,000 insurance claim.

Hours before he left Rhode Island with his mother, Nancy Carman, in his fishing boat named Chicken Pox, Nathan Carman was seen enlarging holes near the boat's waterline to the size of a half dollar, court records allege.

Carman "omitted telling plaintiffs he removed the boat's two forward structural bulkhead halves and he removed the boat's trim tabs before departing on its final voyage," wrote lawyers representing the National Liability and Fire Insurance Co. and Boat Owners Association of the United States, which insured the vessel.

"He did so with the intention of sinking his boat," they wrote.

Carman also misrepresented his boat's course and the location of where it sank, the lawyers said.

"Among other reasons, if his life raft had been deployed there on September 18, 2016, as he swore falsely, oceanographic analysis shows it would not have drifted to where defendant was picked up," the lawyer said.

A Chinese fishing vessel named The Orient Lucky rescued Carman about 100 miles south of Martha's Vineyard a week after he said the boat sank.

"That misrepresentation has precluded efforts to recover the sunken boat and plaintiffs' ability to inspect it and the alterations Carman made to it," the lawyers said.

Carman is also a suspect in his grandfather's 2013 murder in Connecticut. He has denied involvement in both of the deaths.

In a hearing earlier this month in federal court in Providence, Carman was ordered to turn over information about a Sig Sauer .308-caliber semi-automatic rifle he owned by U.S. Judge Patricia Sullivan.

The weapon is missing, according to documents in the New Hampshire suit. Authorities say it is the same caliber weapon used to slay John Chakalos, Carman's grandfather.

Carman was also ordered to turn over phone records for any phone he used from Sept. 1 through Sept. 25, 2016, the day he was rescued at sea.

Carman's aunts sued in New Hampshire Probate Court in July to keep him from claiming his mother's share of the family fortune, which according to the filings stands at $28 million.

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