NH judge in Nathan Carman case rebukes attorneys, accuses them of trying to take advantage of him

Nathan Carman has been accused by family members of killing his millionaire grandfather and possibly his mother.

In a stinging 37-page ruling Friday, a New Hampshire probate judge refused to sanction Nathan Carman for revealing confidential records and instead accused lawyers for his three aunts of trying to take advantage of the fact he is representing himself in a legal fight over Carman’s access to a $7 million inheritance.

Judge David K. King’s ruling followed a hearing last month where the lawyers — Dan Small and William Satterly — sought to have Carman sanctioned for revealing Windsor police department documents in a separate case in a Rhode Island federal court. King made it clear that he believes there is a pattern of the attorneys “attempting to take advantage” of the fact that Carmen is representing himself in court.

Carman’s three aunts — Valerie Santilli, Elaine Chakalos and Charlene Gallagher — have filed a so-called “slayer” petition in New Hampshire to keep Carman from inheriting $7 million in light of his grandfather’s death in 2013 and his mother’s presumed death while on a fishing trip with Nathan Carman. The case is scheduled to go to trial in January.

Both Carman and his mother, Linda Carman, were on a fishing trip in 2016 when their boat sank. Carman was rescued from a raft eight days later and Linda Carman is presumed dead.

Carman was identified in a search warrant as a suspect in the 2013 shooting death of his father, John Chakalos. Carman has not been charged in his grandfather’s death and has denied killing him.

In Friday’s ruling, King wrote that “there have been a number of pleadings filed by petitioner’s counsels that are without merit such that one may question whether counsels are attempting to take advantage of Mr. Carman’s pro se status and lack of legal training.”

King held a three-hour hearing last month about concerns that Carman’s attorney in a Rhode Island boat insurance case had revealed parts of the nearly 22,000-page investigative report by Windsor police into the slaying of Chakalos, who was shot in his Windsor home in 2013. Police sought an arrest warrant for Nathan Carman. It was not approved.

In court documents filed in Rhode Island, federal court attorney David Anderson seeks to interview a woman referred to as “Mistress Y” about the weekend of Dec. 13-14, 2013 that she spent with John Chakalos at the Mohegan Sun. In an interview after the murder, the woman told Windsor police he gave her $3,500 for breast enhancement. She denied having sex with him. She told police that she did have a conversation with Chakalos on Dec. 19, 2013, that lasted about 20 minutes and was “sexual in nature.” She said they made plans during that phone call to go to New York City together over Christmas.

The timing of that phone call is a key issue for Carman’s defense. He has said that he left his grandfather’s house just as he started talking to the mistress and that Chakalos paused the conversation with her to say goodbye to Carman.

Also at last month’s hearing Carman sought sanctions against Small and Satterly for filing some of his medical and education records publicly instead of under seal and for using some of those medical records against him in yet another case pending in the West Hartford, Conn., probate court where Nathan Carman is trying to get a judge to remove Valerie Santilli as trustee of a trust in Nathan’s name so that he can get $150,000 to hire an attorney in the New Hampshire case.

King said the attempt to file Carman’s medical records without a seal is just the latest in a series of “uncivilized, bordering on unethical conduct.”

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NH judge in Nathan Carman case rebukes attorneys, accuses them of trying to take advantage of him