PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A civil case involving the sinking of Nathan Carman’s fishing boat is inching closer to trial, after attorneys for both Carman and the insurance companies denying his insurance claim met with a judge on Monday.

Nathan Carman was on board his fishing boat the “Chicken Pox” with his mother Linda when it sank during a fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island last year. Carman was found seven days later, floating on an inflatable life raft. His mother was never found and is presumed dead.

Carman filed an $85,000 insurance claim after the boat sank, which two insurance companies are now disputing in federal court.

The attorneys for National Liability & Fire Insurance Company and Boat Owners Association of the United States met with Carman’s attorneys behind closed doors in the chambers of U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan.

Both sides declined to comment on the case after the conference.

According to a court filing by two insurance companies, the sinking of the Chicken Pox was not “accidental,” pointing out that Carman made alterations to the boat shortly before the tragic fishing trip.

“Several hours before departing from Ram Point Marina he removed the boat’s trim tabs and thereby opened four half dollar sized holes in the hull near the waterline and did not fill them in a satisfactory fashion,” the document claims.

The lawyers for the insurance companies also want to include the deaths of Carman’s mother and grandfather, both separately under investigation, as part of the discovery in this civil case.

The attorneys also write in the court filing that possible “criminal wrongdoing” by Carman would bar his insurance claim, writing “his actions/inactions regarding his mother’s death are within the scope of discovery as ‘relevant’ to the sinking..as is his grandfather’s unsolved homicide, potentially similarly motivated by Nathan Carman’s possible $11 million inheritance.”

The murder of Carman’s grandfather John Chakalos remains unsolved. Police said Carman was considered a person of interest in the 2013 Connecticut homicide, but no charges have ever been filed.

Carman has denied any involvement in his grandfather’s death and has said he didn’t sabotage the boat used for the mother-son fishing trip, although he admits in another court document to removing the trim tabs and filling the holes with an adhesive.