A federal judge has granted prosecutors more time to prepare their case against Nathan Carman, the former Connecticut resident accused of killing his mother as part of a plot to inherit her family’s fortune.
Chief U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled this week that the matter has been designated a “complex case” and that the time between Aug. 11 and the next state conference on Aug. 30 of September should be excluded from the calculation of the time in which the trial must begin. under federal law.
Prosecutors had sought the ruling in a motion filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont to buy more time to prepare for trial in the case, which they called “unusual and complex “.
Nathan Carman, a former Middletown resident, was charged this year in the 2016 death of his mother. Linda Carman disappeared in 2016 while on a fishing trip with her son on Block Island, officials said. authorities
Authorities say years before Nathan Carman killed his mother, he also shot and killed his grandfather, John Chakalos, as he slept in his Windsor home, according to court documents.
Carman has not been charged with his grandfather’s murder, but law enforcement officials say he used a New Hampshire license to buy a rifle, even though he lived in an apartment in Connecticut, according to court documents.
Last month, Crawford denied a request by Carman’s public defenders to allow him to be released on bond pending trial. Carman has remained in federal custody since his arrest in May on charges of offshore murder in the death of his mother and four counts of wire fraud in connection with the 2013 shooting death of his grandfather.
Prosecutors cited the “extensive potential evidence” and the number of experts they expect to testify in “atypical” areas in their motion asking for more time.
“For example, the government plans to call experts to testify in the areas of ocean drift analysis, naval architecture, and natural medicine, among others,” assistant US attorneys wrote in the motion.