Prosecutors seek more time in Carman case
Federal prosecutors want the potential trial date moved back for former Middletown resident Nathan Carman who is charged with committing fraud by killing his grandfather and murdering his mother at sea years later due to the complexity of the case.
Carman, 26, has been held since his arrest by federal authorities on May 10 on several counts of fraud and one count of murder on the high seas. According to attorneys within the office of Vermont U.S. District Attorney Nikolas Kerest, the clock started ticking Friday for Carman to receive a speedy trial within 70 days.
But Kerest’s office said in a motion filed Thursday to Chief U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford that prosecutors don’t want the 70-day time frame to go into effect until at least after a status conference at the end of September, “because the ends of justice would be best served by excluding this time.”
Federal authorities contend that Carman is responsible for the shooting death of his grandfather John Chakalos, as the older man slept in December 2013, and then he killed his mother Linda Carman who disappeared in 2016 while the two were on a fishing trip.
Carman has never charged with murder in his grandfather’s death which occurred in his Windsor home. But federal authorities contend that he tried to “defraud” insurance companies by killing his grandfather, leading to four counts of wire fraud and
three counts of mail fraud.
In the years since his grandfather’s and his mother’s death, Carman has battled two civil lawsuits with an insurance company who refused to pay after the sinking of his ship and one with family members who said he committed the murders to get his hands on the family fortune. The $42 million family fortune is still tied up in probate nearly 10 years after Chakalos died.
Any trial on the federal charges would require a review of the voluminous court records for both lawsuits and the procurement of expert witnesses in “atypical areas” including ocean drift analysis, naval architecture, wilderness medicine among others, said prosecutors who called the case “unusual and complex.”
The federal prosecutors want the judge to determine that moving forward with the 70-day time frame which starts today would be a “miscarriage of justice”
in order to get the start date moved to September or beyond. The prosecutors also wanted the case deemed “complex” so that the speedy trial time frame could be halted at various points in the case.
Carman’s public defenders said in their bid to get him released filed last month that he is not a flight risk, he has been transparent with the media and police and has no mental health concerns other than a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, a disorder on the autism spectrum.
But Kerest called the claims made by his public defenders “misleading or mistaken.” “Carman poses a risk of flight; Carman poses a danger; and there are no conditions of release which will mitigate either concern,” Kerest wrote in a 12-page filing opposing Carman’s release on bond.
The judge ordered Carman to remain held without bond on Aug. 2 following a hearing on his motion for release.