Prisoner sentenced in plot to kidnap Nassau prosecutor

A man serving prison time for murder was sentenced Friday to an additional 3 to 6 years in prison for plotting to hire someone to kidnap and torture the Nassau prosecutor who helped put him behind bars for killing a Manhasset medical student in 1993.

Chandran Nathan, 59, had pleaded guilty in Nassau County Court to second-degree criminal solicitation in February, admitting that he offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as the abductor $10,000 to kidnap, beat and waterboard Fred Klein, the lawyer who prosecuted Nathan.

Nathan — who is a serving a term of 37 1⁄2 years to life in upstate Shawangunk Correctional Facility for the murder — had hopes of forcing Klein to say on videotape that his confession to killing Shaleen Wadhwani, 20, was coerced, according to Nassau prosecutors.

Klein, a visiting assistant professor of law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, said Nassau residents were “lucky” to have a district attorney who protects everyone.

“My family is extremely grateful for the skill and dedication to justice exhibited by this prosecution,” Klein said in an email.

In exchange for Nathan’s guilty plea, acting state Supreme Court Justice Helene Gugerty agreed to sentence Nathan to 3 to 6 years in prison. He could have received 3 1⁄2 to 7 years in prison.

Nathan was eligible for parole in 2030, but the additional prison time pushed that date to 2033. The sentence is consecutive.

“Any effort to harm or intimidate our prosecutors — current or former — will be met with serious consequences, and this defendant’s foolhardy plot to have a former prosecutor kidnapped and assaulted in a desperate effort to get himself out of prison only earned him more time behind bars,” Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a news release.

Prosecutors said they learned of the plot from a tipster. Nathan was arrested after he discussed the plot with the undercover police officer. Their conversation was recorded, Nathan’s attorney, Stephen G. Murphy of Brooklyn, said in an earlier interview. Murphy said his client, who had exhausted his appeals, wanted to get out of prison so he could care for his cancer-stricken mother.

In the murder case, prosecutors said Nathan was jealous of Wadhwani, who was engaged to a woman Nathan wanted for himself, authorities said during his trial.

Nathan, who shot Wadhwani in May 1993 with a rifle, had claimed at trial he was not responsible because he was mentally ill. The jury didn’t believe him and convicted him of second-degree murder.

Wadhwani’s fiancee, Hema Sakhrani, 20, jumped to her death two days after he was killed.