A failed stock trader who is accused of murdering his estranged wife told police at the time of her death that he had pulled her out of the bathtub to resuscitate her, but his clothes were dry when officers arrived, court testimony has revealed.
Rod Covlin, 44, is accused of strangling his wife, Shele Danishefsky, who was found dead in the bathtub at her Manhattan apartment the day before she was planning to write Covlin out of her will in 2009, court papers claim.
Covlin called police less than hour after discovering the 47-year-old mother-of-two in the bathtub, and told officers that he had tried to revive her.
But according to testimony from Sgt Yadelie Sanchez, his clothes were dry when she arrived, meaning he must have changed after pulling her from the bathtub.
Roderick Covlin (left on Monday), 44, appeared stoic as he sat next to his attorneys in a Manhattan criminal court for his trial nearly two years after he was arrested and charged with the murder of his estranged wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin (right)
His estranged wife was found dead in her bathtub one day before she was planning to cut Covlin (above in court on Monday) out of her will on New Year’s Eve in 2009
The father-of-two (above center in court on Monday) is also accused of trying to set up a marriage between a Mexican man and their daughter, Anna, who was only 13 years old, prosecutors allege
‘How did his clothing appear when you encountered him?’ defense lawyer Derrelle Janie asked Sanchez in court on Tuesday, The New York Post reported. ‘His clothing was dry, correct?
‘Yes,’ she answered, adding that Covlin told her and her supervisor that he found Danishefsky in the tub after receiving a panicked phone call from his nine-year-old daughter and rushing over to their apartment.
Sanchez said that Covlin offered a theory to police on how Danishefsky had died.
‘She was trying to grab something, a piece of wood broke, and she landed in the bathtub and hit her head,’ she recalled him saying.
She said Covlin appeared to be distraught and was shaking and gagging.
The detail about his dry clothing first appeared during a two-day hearing ahead of his trial.
Covlin (left) has been held without bond since his arrest in 2015 and faces 25 years to life in prison if he’s convicted. The failed stock trader was less than two months away from inheriting half of his wife’s (right) $4 million fortune until he was charged for her gruesome murder
The victim’s sister, Eve Karstaedt (front left), was pictured heading into court on Monday along with her brother Philip Danishefsky (right)
His defense team argued that the information couldn’t be used during the trial because the comments weren’t made voluntarily.
When Covlin spoke to police at the Upper West Side apartment, the death wasn’t yet a homicide and the apartment wasn’t a crime scene, the prosecuting team countered.
An autopsy confirmed that a bone in Danishefsky’s throat had been broken by force.
Colvin has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
He was arrested in 2015 after his then-girlfriend went to the police and gave them the ammunition to indict him on the charges, after she said he ‘made statements implicating himself’ in the 2009 slaying.
He was arrested at the Scarsdale Metro North train station by three NYPD detectives and a representative from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2015. At the time of his arrest, he was headed to his weekly visit with their kids, who lived with his parents.
Covlin has been held without bond for the last two years and faces 25 years to life in prison if he’s convicted.
At the time of her murder, the couple was in the midst of a costly and nasty divorce when Anna, who was then-nine years old, found her mother submerged in the bathtub of their West 68th Street apartment (file above) in New York City
The failed stock trader was less than two months away from inheriting half of his wife’s $4million fortune until he was charged for her gruesome murder.
The other half of the money is intended for Anna and Myles, who are each due $1million.
Shortly after his arrest, Covlin was accused of trying to set up a marriage between his daughter and a Mexican man in an attempt to collect his daughter’s part of the inheritance when she was 13 years old.
The money has been being held in a trust due to a wrongful-death suit filed against the defendant in 2011, according to the New York Post.
Previous incidents where Covlin had been called an ‘absolute pedophile’ and a ‘dirty bastard’ by parents of underage girls he had contacted and poked on Facebook were also mentioned in court at the time.
Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos also said Covlin ‘falsely’ reported Danishefsky for sexually abusing their three-year-old son Myles and that he lied to her work supervisor and said his ex-wife was a drug addict.
Covlin’s attorney, Robert Gottlieb, called his client a ‘desperate’ man and said the marriage claim and the other issues Bodganos introduced had ‘nothing to do with the murder allegations’.
Danishefsky was a money manager at UBS, part of a finance family in which she worked alongside her brother and father
Judge Wittner sided with the district attorney at the time.
Covlin and Danishefsky were in the midst of a costly and nasty divorce when Anna, who was then-nine years old, found her mother submerged in the bathtub of their West 68th Street apartment in New York City on New Year’s Eve 2009.
Investigators initially thought she had slipped and fallen, striking her head. After her Orthodox Jewish family objected to an autopsy for religious reasons, the cause of her death was listed as undetermined.
Her body was later exhumed with her family’s permission, and medical examiners concluded in April 2010 that she had been strangled.
Danishefsky was a money manager at UBS, part of a finance family in which she worked alongside her brother and father.
Covlin had been a trader and was a noted figure in the backgammon world, having helped found the US Backgammon Federation.
After years of marriage and the two children, their relationship was falling apart.
He had moved into an apartment across the hall in their Manhattan building, and they were embroiled in a bitter divorce, court papers show.