Judge takes no action in custody request

STAMFORD — As the search resumed Wednesday at a Hartford garbage dump for evidence in the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos, a judge took no action on her mother’s request for custody of the missing woman’s five children.

Judge Donna Heller told an attorney representing Gloria Farber to schedule a full hearing for the custody request to be heard. Farber did not attend the brief hearing at state Superior Court in Stamford.

Michael Meehan, a Bridgeport attorney and court-appointed guardian at litem for the children who range in age from 8 to 13, said he saw all five of the kids Tuesday.

“I can represent to the court they are safe,” he said.

Earlier this week, Heller granted Meehan’s request to suspend visitation rights for the children’s father, Fotis Dulos. The 51-yearold and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, have been charged in Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance.

Investigators returned to a Hartford trash facility for a third day on Wednesday. They have been sifting through piles of trash taken from Hartford receptacles where police say Fotis Dulos was seen tossing garbage bags the night his estranged wife disappeared. They have been using cadaver dogs trained to find human remains.

While Troconis was released Monday on bail, Fotis Dulos remains held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center on $500,000 bond.

Stamford court officials say they have not been notified of plans for Dulos to post bond. Meanwhile, his divorce attorney, Michael Rose, did not oppose the judge’s order to suspend visitation rights.

“I did have an opportunity to speak with both counsel, including attorney Rose, as to whether or not he is taking a position in regard to the order, and my sense is he is not taking a position,” Meehan said.

Rose declined comment as he left the courthouse.

The Dulos children have been staying with Farber, 85, at her Fifth Avenue apartment in New York since Jennifer Dulos was reported missing on May 24.

“Mrs. Farber has a ‘close and substantial’ parent-like relationship with the minor children, who are currently residing with her,” the custody motion said. The children are also under the watch of an armed guard the family hired.

Heller’s ruling this week to prohibit Fotis Dulos’ visitation rights reversed her earlier decision in March when she granted him supervised visitation, while his wife was given temporary sole custody of the children.

Fotis Dulos and Troconis, 44, were arrested on tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges. Both were arraigned Monday in state Superior Court in Norwalk.

Documents in the two-year divorce case between Jennifer Dolus and her husband reveal that Fotis Dulos claimed to have assets of less than $400,000 against total liabilities between $4.9 million and $7.6 million, the latter figure including what is described as contingent debt.

Fotis Dulos has run the custom home building company, Fore Group, for 15 years, starting his career in a family business after graduating from Brown University. He earned an MBA from Columbia Business School and then worked for the technology consulting firm Capgemini from 1997 through 2004, a period when it came under the ownership of Ernst & Young.

This isn’t the first interaction the Dulos family has had with law enforcement.

Fotis Dulos’ mother, 77-year-old Kleopatra Dulos, died shortly after being run over by a 24-yearold family employee in a Land Rover on Sept. 6, 2010, according to DailyMail.com. The incident happened in the driveway of a family home on Deercliff Road in Avon – a short distance from Fotis Dulos’ Jefferson Crossing mansion.

According to a 2010 police report, obtained by DailyMail.com, officers responded to the Deercliff Road home after a medical call and found Kleopatra Dulos in the driveway, alert and conscious, but in extreme pain.

Hearst Connecticut Media requested the report from Avon police. Police said a reporter would have to pick it up from the records division at the Avon police station before 4:30 p.m. Hearst Connecticut Media was unable to get a reporter to the records division before it closed Wednesday.

The police report, according to DailyMail.com, indicated that the nanny did not intentionally run over Kleopatra Dulos. And, despite not having a license, police said in the report that there was no indication that it was a criminal incident.

Kleopatra Dulos was taken to the hospital by ambulance and died shortly afterward.

DailyMail.com said police apparently weren’t told she died. So, when police found out about three months later, officers interviewed the nanny and Fotis Dulos, who was in Italy at the time of the accident, the police report said.

The nanny’s statement to police was written by Fotis Dulos, according to DailyMail.com, because she wasn’t able to read or speak English well. The police report said Fotis Dulos read the statement back to the nanny in Greek before she signed it.

The police report, according to DailyMail.com, indicated that there was no reason to believe what happened to Fotis Dulos’ mother was anything but an accident. No arrests were ever made in connection with his mother’s death.