Jan. 14--The trial of a mooching man-child accused of murdering his estranged spouse for her cash almost a decade in the past is about to begin Monday.
Jury choice will start in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom within the trial of Roderick Covlin, who was charged in November 2015 with strangling monetary adviser Shele Danishefsky Covlin, the 47-year-old mom of their two children, on New 12 months's Eve 2009.
She was discovered lifeless within the bathtub inside her Higher West Aspect residence by their then 9-year-old daughter Anna. Covlin, 45, was residing in a unit throughout the corridor on the time.
Prosecutors say Covlin, an abusive, jobless womanizer whose life was consumed with competing in backgammon tournaments, had the motive and alternative to snuff out the lifetime of his partner within the midst of their bitter divorce battle.
He allegedly hoped to get entry to the cash she left to her children -- and to what he believed can be a life insurance coverage payout to him.
Covlin wrote to a girlfriend per week after the alleged homicide that "(e)ven if my spouse modified her will...insurance coverage cash (so long as hers did not lapse...fingers crossed)...goes right into a belief for me," in keeping with court docket papers.
Danishefsky Covlin was fearful of her husband and informed a number of individuals he would kill her, prosecutors wrote in court docket papers final 12 months.
On the time of her demise, Covlin was below a court docket order to avoid her and the youngsters apart from supervised visits.
"The totality of the defendant's conduct, earlier than and after the demise of Shele Covlin, reveals that his main motive to kill her was pure, unadulterated greed," Assistant District Lawyer Matthew Bogdanos wrote in a pre-trial court docket submitting.
"When his marriage deteriorated to the purpose of dropping Shele's monetary assist for his playboy way of life, he confronted the prospect of one thing inimical to him: turning into gainfully employed, residing inside his means, and supporting his household."
However there was no eyewitness to the alleged crime and the case is additional sophisticated by the truth that Danishefsky Covlin's household opted for no post-mortem and a fast burial, per their non secular beliefs.
Months after she was discovered, as a cloud of suspicion started forming across the accused killer, her household gave permission for investigators to exhume her physique for a forensic analysis.
Covlin's attorneys say there is not any conclusive proof he killed his spouse they usually argue the demise was as a result of a freak accident -- that a fall within the bathe ended her life.
"It'll all unfold within the courtroom in entrance of the jury," Covlin's legal professional Robert Gottlieb mentioned.
The trial is slated to final about two months. There are over 90 potential witnesses on the prosecution's listing alone.
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