Jurors see chokehold in wife slay

A martial arts expert demonstrated a chokehold on a lifesized model skeleton Monday to demonstrate how prosecutors say Roderick Covlin killed his estranged wife.

Trainer Dan Anderson (photo) was called to testify about the use of choke-outs in the martial arts — prosecutors say Covlin bragged about having a black belt in a martial arts discipline but his lawyers say he was an amateur and had only taken classes as a kid.

Anderson has no connection to Covlin, 46, or knowledge of his experience but discussed chokeholds in general.

He testified in Manhattan Supreme Court that the “hardest part” of the maneuver “is to get under the chin” with a forearm, as he demonstrated on the skeleton.

“The natural response (for the victim) is to bring the chin down,” he added. Covlin is accused of using a similar hold to strangle 47year-old Shele Covlin, whose body was found in the bathtub at her W. 68th St. apartment by the couple’s 9-yearold daughter on Dec. 31, 2009.

He said the chokehold’s purpose is “to make you completely unconscious, cut off the blood supply to the brain and then you die.”

Covlin, who is being held without bail pending the outcome of the case, was recorded on surveillance video from a jailhouse law library in November apparently mimicking achokehold move for a fellow inmate.

Anderson admitted on cross-examination that the video shows Covlin doing a “bouncer’s chokehold” with one arm — not the “proper” way the professional performed the move for the jury.

Covlin’s lawyers argue the theory is bogus and that their client is no martial arts expert.

They say Shele Covlin died from a freak fall in the tub and that her death was painted as a homicide because of the ugliness of the couple’s divorce and their history of animosity.