Motion assails man’s silence on mother’s death at sea

An attorney representing Nathan Carman’s family says his clients find it “deeply disturbing” that an insurance company claims he’s refusing to answer even basic questions about himself and his ill-fated boat, the Chicken Pox, which sank last year with his mother aboard.

In a motion filed Monday in federal court in Rhode Island, attorneys for the National Liability and Fire Insurance Co. and the Boat Owners Association of the United States say Carman “has not provided any of the requested discovery,” including information about the day the boat sank, basic biographical questions like his employment history and Social Security number, or information about the unsolved 2013 murder of his grandfather.

Carman’s aunts have claimed he shot and killed his grandfather, John Chakalos, and have taken legal steps to try to prevent him from claiming the deceased man’s estimated $40 million estate.

In a statement to the Herald yesterday, attorney Dan Small, who represents the Chakalos family, said Carman’s family “strongly urges everyone to cooperate fully with the legal process, and finds it deeply disturbing that anyone would refuse to cooperate in such an important matter. There are too many questions without answers.”

The insurance company has denied a claim for the boat, arguing the sinking was not accidental and was instead caused by alterations Carman made to the vessel. The motion also notes “striking similarities” between his mother’s presumed death aboard the boat and his grandfather’s unsolved homicide.

The plaintiffs are seeking phone records and the identities of anyone Carman may have spoken to about the death of either family member and attorneys said they hope to piece together his “comings and goings” leading up to the sinking of the Chicken Pox in September 2016.

Carman’s attorneys have argued many of the requests from the plaintiffs are irrelevant or fall outside the scope of discovery.

Carman is representing himself in the court proceeding brought by his aunts to block his eightfigure inheritance.