Ex-stock trader, 45, accused of strangling his UBS executive wife to stop her from writing him out of her $4million will 'tried to frame their daughter by penning a fake confession when he realized police were onto him'
- Shele Danishefsky, 47, was found dead, face down, in her bathtub in 2009
- She was in the midst of divorcing her much younger husband Rod Covlin, 36
- The day before her death, she set a meeting to write him out of her will
- She feared he would kill her, according to relatives, and wanted to ensure he would not have any control over her money
- At the time, an autopsy was not performed due to her family's strict Jewish faith
- When suspicion mounted in 2010, her body was exhumed and a medical examiner revealed she had been strangled
- Rod was not arrested, however, until 2017 after plotting several ways to gain control of his children's trust fund
- In 2013, he is accused of posing as Anna to write a fake Apple note confessing to killing Shele
- The note said she killed her because she was angry at her mother for dating
- He denies murder and says the new allegations against him are 'garbage'
A former stock broker accused of murdering his wealthy estranged wife in 2009 before she could cut him out of her will tried to frame their daughter when he realized police were closing in on him years later, it has been claimed.
Rod Covlin, now 45, is accused of of murdering his businesswoman wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin then leaving her body in the bathtub of her Manhattan apartment for their daughter, Anna, to find at 7am on New Year's Eve in 2009.
He was 36 at the time. Shele, a UBS executive from a wealthy Jewish orthodox family, was 47 and was the sole breadwinner while her husband pursued a career as a professional backgammon player.
Shele had been put in a choke-hold, strangled, then turned face down in the tub in what prosecutors say was set up to look like an accidental drowning.
She was found by the couple's daughter Anna. Their other child, Myles, was at home asleep.
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Rod Covlin, now 45, is accused of of murdering his businesswoman wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, in 2009 by strangling her and leaving her body in the bathtub of her Manhattan apartment for their daughter to find. He is shown, left, in court on Monday nine years after her death
Because the only visible injury on her body was a cut to the back of the head and because her religious family protested against an invasive autopsy, the cause of her death was undetermined.
At the time, the couple were in the midst of a bitter custody and divorce battle which centered around Covlin's alleged infidelity. The day before her death, Shele, made an appointment to meet with her attorney to discuss taking Rod, a Columbia-graduate, out of her $4million will.
For six years, her death was deemed to be an accident until 2015 when Covlin was recorded by a girlfriend hatching up a plan to marry Anna off so that he would be able to control her inheritance.
His hope was that by her getting married, she would no longer be considered a minor and that technicality would grant him access to the money.
He was prepared to pay a Mexican teenage boy $10,000 to go through with the marriage.
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By then, the children had been removed from his care and given to his parents and he had no way of accessing the $4million which had been left to them by their deceased mother.
On Monday, nine years after his wife's death, he appeared in court to face murder charges and was accused of trying to frame Anna for killing Shele by penning an Apple note in 2013, allegedly pretending to be his daughter, where she confessed to the killing.
It read: 'All of these years I have been so incredibly afraid and guilty about the night my mom died.
'I lied. She didn't just slip. That day we got into a fight about her dating … I got mad so I pushed her, but it couldn't have been that hard!
'I didn't mean to hurt her! I swear! But she fell and I heard a terrible noise and the water started turning red and I tried to pull her head up but she remained still…'
Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos claimed he wrote the note once he learned the DA's investigation into him was heating up again.
At the time of her death, Rod was 36 and Shele, a UBS executive from a wealthy background, was 47. She was the sole breadwinner and he was pursuing his backgammon passion
He was reported to police by a girlfriend who secretly recorded a conversation they had where he allegedly discussed marrying Anna off so that he would finally be able to get control of her trust fund.
After their mother's death, the children were entrusted to their father's parents' care after they raised concern that he was physically abusing their son.
There were also claims he had been trying to contact underage girls by 'poking' them on Facebook. One threatened to report him to the police if he did not stop, according to prosecutors, and there were other allegations which prosecutors made vague reference to in court that he had actually engaged in sexual contact with a minor.
In 2010, a year after Shele died, her family allowed her body to be exhumed so that a full autopsy could be carried out.
They had previously refused on grounds of their religion but changed their minds as suspicion against Covlin mounted.
The autopsy revealed that she had been strangled and a medical examiner ruled the cause of death as homicide but no charges were brought against her ex-husband.
Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him and, as part of it, a judge placed an order prohibiting him from seeing any of the money that had been left to him or her children.
The couple were in the midst of a bitter divorce battle and Shele was trying to write her husband out of her will. They were living in separate apartments on the same floor of this Upper West Side apartment building
Shele's nine-year-old daughter Anna found her face down in the bathtub of their apartment (shown) on New Year's Eve at 7am. By the time police arrived, Rod was in dry clothes
Covlin, who has been described as greedy and unscrupulous by prosecutors, was enraged by it because he was desperate to control the children's trust fund.
To try to regain control of it, he allegedly hatched a plan to kill his own parents.
Shele's body was exhumed in 2010 a year after she died for an autopsy to be performed. It revealed she had been strangled
He also, it is claimed, tried to convince Anna to accuse her grandfather, his father, of molesting her and sickeningly, gave her instructions on how to break her own hymen with a cucumber to make it appear as though she had been sexually assaulted.
He denies all of the allegations against him and maintains that Shele's death was an accident.
After the new accusations emerged on Wednesday, his lawyer Robert Gottlieb said: 'It's disgusting because it's clear what happened here.
'These garbage allegations, which the DA has been desperate to get before a jury has been thrown out of the case by the judge in a very clear decision.
'The allegations are absurd, ridiculous and they will have no role to play in this case.'
Details of his life before Shele remain unclear as are the details surrounding his career on Wall Street.
When his wife died, he was well known on the backgammon circuit and was one of the founding members of the US Backgammon Federation.
