Inmate accused in kidnap-assault plot

The Island Now

A man who was convicted in 1993 of killing a Manhasset man pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to a charge of  plotting to kidnap and assault the former Nassau County assistant district attorney who prosecuted him.

Chandran Nathan, 59, allegedly offered $10,000 to abduct the former prosecutor, Fred Klein, and place him in handcuffs and assault him, prosecutors said.

Nathan requested that Klein be beaten — but not around his face — and waterboarded to force him to make a videotaped statement saying Nathan’s confession was coerced, prosecutors said.

Nathan alledgedly wanted Klein to mention a few cases he prosecuted so the video would not be linked back to him, a news release from the district attorney’s office said.

Nathan, an inmate at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in upstate New York,  was sentenced to  37 years in prison in 1994 for killing Shaleen Wadhwani, a 20-year-old medical student from Manhasset, who was engaged to Hema Sakhrani. 

Nathan shot Wadhwani 11 times with a semiautomatic rifle at his home in Manhasset on May 26, 1993. Nathan was obsessed with Sakhrani and was angered over her engagement to Wadhwani with whom she was living, prosecutors said.

Two days after Wadhwani was killed, Sakhrani committed suicide by jumping from the 16th-floor terrace of her family’s Queens apartment.

Efforts to reach Klein, who is now a law professor at Hofstra University, were unavailing. 

According to an indictment, the district attorney’s office received a tip about Nathan’s plan, carried out between May and October, to hire someone outside prison to assault Klein.

Supreme Court Justice Helene Gugerty issued an order of protection, ordering Nathan to not try and contact Klein.

Nathan was charged with second-degree criminal solicitation, and is due back in court on Dec. 15.

“This case is a reminder of the difficult and dangerous jobs that law enforcement professionals do every day,” Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement. “We will continue to work to ensure their safety and those who attempt to tamper with our prosecutions will be held accountable. I thank the Nassau County Police Department, State Department of Corrections and our NCDA Detective Investigators for investigating this case.”

Assistant District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said she believes Nathan exhibits “no remorse” for his actions.

“His motivation basically was that he had exhausted all of his appeals, and I think he should be examined to determine his stability,” said Stephen Murphy, Nathan’s defense lawyer. 

Murphy said Nathan wanted to get out of jail to care for his mother, who has cancer. 

Murphy was not Nathan’s attorney in the 1994 case.

Prosecutors said Nathan, if convicted, faces 3 1/2 to seven years in prison. Nathan is not eligible for parole until 2030, Murphy said.

By Stephen Romano

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