The father of a woman found dead at the bottom of a luxury apartment’s trash chute has filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming his daughter’s ex-husband hired a hitman to kill her so he would not lose millions in an “acrimonious divorce.”

Lara Prychodko, 48, was found dead in July 2018 after her body was crushed by a trash compactor in the Zeckendorf Towers in Union Square, where she lived, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Investigators were unable to determine how she died, and her manner of death was listed as “undetermined,” but detectives believe she fell 27 floors down the chute.

Prychodko and her husband, David Schlachet, were estranged and going through a divorce. At the time of Prychodko’s death, Schlachet was facing multi-million lawsuits and had filed for bankruptcy.

In his lawsuit, Nicholas Prychodko alleges that Schlachet and an unidentified man “conspired to and, through their concerted efforts, did, in fact, murder Lara Prychodko,” NBC News reports.

The lawsuit accuses Schlachet of installing software on Prychodko’s phone, allowing the hit man to lie in wait for her, strangle her, and shove her body down the garbage chute.

Schlachet’s attorneys responded to the suit denying the allegations and calling the hit man a “wholly fictitious person.”

Criminal charges were never filed in Prychodko’s death, which her father suspected was a murder from the beginning.

The New York medical examiner, however, disagreed, noting that “the circumstances around the death are unclear; however there is no suspicion of foul play.”

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[Feature Photo: Lara Prychodko via Dignity Memorial]