A Vermont man was arrested on charges including murder on the high seas in the 2016 death of his mother on a boat that had sparked a civil legal saga, federal prosecutors announced.
Nathan Carman was arrested Tuesday on an eight-count indictment, according to officials at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont. The document also charges Carman with an inheritance fraud scheme involving the deadly shooting of his grandfather in 2013 in Windsor, Connecticut.
Both killings are allegedly part of a scheme to obtain money from Carman's grandfather. Carman, a 28-year-old from Vernon, Vermont, faces life imprisonment if he's convicted of the murder on the high seas charge, and each fraud charge carries up to 30 years in prison.
Relatives have previously accused Carman of killing his mother, Linda Carman, and his grandfather, John Chakalos, a wealthy real estate developer, in a scheme to inherit $7 million that Chakalos had left to Linda Carman.
Nathan and Linda Carman were on the son's fishing boat, The Chicken Pox, for a fishing trip when it sank in 2016, leaving Carmen's mother, Linda Carman, missing and presumed dead. Nathan Carman was found floating on a raft off the coast of Rhode Island eight days later.
He's due in federal court Wednesday in Rutland, Vermont. His attorney did not return a call seeking comment.
William Michael, an attorney for Carman's mother's sisters, said Tuesday the family had no immediate comment.
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In 2019, a federal judge in Rhode Island decided that Carman contributed to the 2016 sinking of the boat from which his mother was lost at sea.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a written decision in favor of an insurance company that had refused to pay an $85,000 claim to Carman for the loss of his fishing boat.
Carman denied doing anything to intentionally make the boat unseaworthy. He told the Coast Guard that when the boat filled quickly with water, he swam to the life raft and called for his mother but never saw her again.
The judge found, among other things, that shortly before the fishing trip with his mother, Carman made improper repairs to the boat. Witnesses testified that he removed two stabilizing trim tabs from the stern, near the vessel's waterline, leaving holes that he tried to seal with an epoxy stick.
He was found floating in the raft off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a Massachusetts island, by the crew of a freighter eight days after the boat was reported missing.
Nathan Carman had been named by police as a "person of interest" in the killing of Chakalos, who was shot in the head at his home in 2013. No criminal charges were filed against him in connection with his grandfather's death.
