Nathan Carman trial: insurance company lawyer says it was ‘predictable’ that boat would sink after Carman made changes

Hartford Courant (CT)

Aug. 14--At the start of a federal trial in U.S. District Court about the sinking of Nathan Carman's boat, a lawyer for one of his insurance companies said it was "perfectly predictable" that the boat sank after changes made by Carman.

"He left Point Judith with holes in his boat and 12 hours later it sank," David Farrell, a lawyer for the Boat Owners Association of the United States, told the court. Farrell said Carman used an epoxy to fill holes he made in the boat, despite directions that said "do not use to fill holes." When you add up all of the ill-advised changes Carman made to the boat, Farrell said it was predictable "that it sank the next day."

Carman, whose insurance companies are refusing to pay an $85,000 claim for his boat, has said he was adrift for seven days after his boat sank while fishing for tuna, with his mother aboard. His mother, Linda Carman, has never been found after the sinking on Sept. 16, 2016 in an area off of Long Island known as "Block Canyon."

Farrell said in his opening statement that a hypothermia expert will testify there is little chance Carman was drifting in a life raft for a week before his rescue. He said a physician from Massachusetts General Hospital will testify based on photos taken of Carman after he was rescued at sea that he "must have been in the life raft significantly shorter than the seven days" that he claims.

Farrell also said that an oceanographic expert from the Woods Hole Institute will testify that an analysis of tides in September of 2016 "doesn't support a Block Canyon sinking that day." He said there is an 80-mile difference where Carman was found and where the expert estimates his raft should have floated.

U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell is restricting the trial to 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 John Chakalos in 2013, where police say Carman remains a person of interest.

In his opening statement, Carman's attorney David Anderson painted his client as naive about how boats worked when he purchased his boat, the Chicken Pox, from a Plymouth man named Brian Woods. "He couldn't sell the boat until Nathan Carman came along who had more money than experience and he saw an opportunity to take advantage of him," Anderson said.

Woods sold the Chicken Pox, with a recently rebuilt turbo diesel engine, to Carman for $48,000 in December 2015. On Tuesday he testified he was concerned when Carman showed up at his Plymouth boatyard to pick up the boat by himself.

"I didn't think it was very prudent he take the boat from Plymouth to Point Judith by himself," Woods said. Later, when he went to Point Judith to get his license plates back, he found the boat a mess and saw Carman had removed a $1,200 compass from the boat's console.

"I was concerned about his lack of respect for the ocean," Woods said.

But under cross examination by Anderson, Woods admitted he didn't remember how he installed the trim tabs that Carman later removed from the boat before the ill-fated trip in September 2016 where his mother was lost at sea. Trim tabs, which are attached to the hull, provide control and stability for the boat.

The tabs are a key part of the case because Carman removed them and left holes that insurers say he didn't properly fill.

"I remember installing the trim tabs but the exact fittings I used and exactly how I installed them I can't recall," Woods said. "I have a very good memory so I'm stumped why I can't remember how I installed the trim tabs."

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. 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.

Before starting with evidence Tuesday, McConnell said the trial will focus on three issues -- whether Carman breached his duty to the insurance company by not informing them of work he did on the boat, whether the repairs he made were faulty and whether he knew the Chicken Pox was not seaworthy when it left Point Judith late on the evening of Sept. 15, 2016.

It is unclear how long the truncated trial will last but McConnell has set a 15-hour limit on each lawyer for the amount of time for everything from direct examination, cross examination and arguments.

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 the Chicken Pox sank.

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.

In June, a probate judge in New Hampshire dismissed a "slayer petition" filed by the 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.

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.

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

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Nathan Carman trial: insurance company lawyer says it was 'predictable' that boat would sink after Carman made changes

Aug 13, 2019

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.

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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