Attorney: Dulos, Troconis implicated
Accused conspirator says Fotis Dulos and his former girlfriend asked him for alibi
Kent Mawhinney, a critical player in the ongoing case of missing NewCanaan mother Jennifer Farber Dulos, has given a statement to state police implicating another alleged conspirator and Dulos’ estranged husband, according to court documents and sources close to the investigation.
The statement — given just weeks before
Mawhinney was able to get out of prison on a reduced bond — implicates both Fotis Dulos and his one-time girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, according to an attorney involved in the case.
Mawhinney “claims he just happened to stop by on the night of May 23 and they told him what they were going to do and that Fotis then told him they had done it and asked if he (Mawhinney) would be an alibi witness which he says he refused to do,” Jon Schoenhorn, who is representing Troconis, said Monday.
Mawhinney’s potential role as a cooperating witness could mark a critical turn in unraveling the story of what happened to Dulos, who has been missing for more than 18 months. While authorities believe Fotis Dulis killed her at her New Canaan home and drove back to Farmington with her body in a truck, she has never been found. Dulos took his own life in late January.
Schoenhorn filed a two-page
motion in Stamford Superior Court on Monday seeking more records, videos and detectives’ notes surrounding the interview Mawhinney gave state police. Schoenhorn refers to Mawhinney as a “jailhouse informant” and is seeking any records of deals he may have gotten to cooperate a reduced bond.
Mawhinney gave a videotaped statement to state police detectives at the polygraph unit at state police headquarters on Aug. 31. By mid-October he was released from prison after his bond was lowered from $2 million to $246,000.
“I expected there’d be something like this because an inmate doesn’t get released from prison with no hearing, no court appearances or any objections from the state,” Schoenhorn said.
Both Mawhinney and Troconis have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Troconis — who is also accused of helping Fotis Dulos dispose evidence of the crime — has said she knew nothing about any plans to kill Jennifer.
“Despite the way I have been treated by the police, I know nothing about Jennifer Dulos’ whereabouts ... what may have happened to her,” she has said.
Troconis has been free on a $2.1 million bond, but Mawhinney was unable to make his original $2 million bond and has been in the Cheshire Correctional Institute for the past several months.
The motion indicates that Mawhinney was interviewed Aug. 31 by state police detectives at the department’s polygraph unit, located at is Middletown headquarters. It is unclear if Mawhinney took a polygraph or if that was simply the location of the interview. Schoenhorn has asked for a copy of a test if it exists.
Mawhinney eventually signed a statement on Sept. 18, according to the motion, and was released from prison on a reduced bond less than a month later. Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo, who is prosecuting the Dulos case, didn’t object to Mawhinney’s release or bond reduction.
Schoenhorn’s motion does not outline any specific information about what Mawhinney may have told state police or if he offered any evidence as to where Jennifer Farber Dulos may be buried.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to cross examine him because there is no evidence to corroborate any of his story,” Schoenhorn said.
Both Troconis and Mawhinney are facing conspiracy to commit murder charges for their alleged roles in the disappearance of Farber Dulos, who hasn’t been seen since returning to her New Canaan home on the morning of May 24, 2019.
Mawhinney was arrested by state troopers in Tolland after allegedly trying to flee on the same day that Dulos was charged with murder. The Courant has reported that Dulos called Mawhinney at his South Windsor law office just before Dulos was arrested.
The arrest warrant for Mawhinney, of South Windsor, outlines allegations that he conspired with Dulos in the disappearance of Farber Dulos, the 51-year-old mother of Dulos’ five children, on May 24.
In an arrest warrant affidavit, state police detectives wrote that Mawhinney was present at Dulos’ office the day Farber Dulos went missing and his name appeared on detailed notes taken by Dulos and his then-girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, that investigators called the “Alibi Scripts.”
Troconis has told police she remembers seeing Mawhinney at the house that morning even though Dulos wasn’t there.
Mawhinney was not cooperative with state police initially, telling them that he fell down the stairs a few days after Farber Dulos’ disappearance. Mawhinney said he hit his head and lost part of his memory and also broke the cellphone he had then so they could not impound it.
There also was the curious “grave” found at an East Granby gun club that Mawhinney used to belong to. A couple of members of the club found what they believed was a freshly dug grave about a week before Farber Dulos disappeared. The two men told state police they saw bags of lime in it.
But when they went back a few weeks later the grave had been filled in. When state police dug it up they found nothing.
Jennifer Farber Dulos’ estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, was arrested last January and charged with murder at that same time Troconis and Mawhinney also were arrested. While Dulos made a $6 million bond and Troconis made a $2.1 million bond, Mawhinney went to prison because he couldn’t make his $2 million bond.
Mawhinney’s bond was later reduced to $246,000 in cash and a real estate bond. The motion seeking his release said that he wanted to go visit his ailing father in Florida and made no mention of the fact state police had interviewed for hours just weeks before that.
There was never a bond hearing held, instead a Stamford judge ordered his release without him ever appearing in court.
Although Fotis Dulos initially made bond, when it appeared the bail was going to be revoked, Dulos later tried to take his own life in the garage of the Jefferson Crossing house he once shared with Troconis. He died a few days later in a New York Hospital never regaining consciousness.
Dulos left a suicide note in the vehicle saying that he had nothing to do with Farber Dulos’ disappearance but that he couldn’t bear going back to prison. The note also exonerated Troconis and Mawhinney.
Farber Dulos has not been seen since she dropped her children off at a private school in New Canaan shortly after 8 a.m. on May 24, 2019. State police have alleged that Dulos “lied in wait” for her in the garage of her New Canaan home and that a violent struggle took place inside the garage.
They have alleged that Dulos then took her body from the house in her Chevrolet Suburban and transferred it to a red Toyota pickup truck he had driven to New Canaan from Farmington and left at a park near her home. He then drove back to Farmington where Troconis later met him at a home owned by his company, The Fore Group, authorities say.
The red pickup truck never left the property until its owner came to get it and give Dulos back his black Ford Raptor that he drove to Albany Avenue later that same night to dispose of the trash bags, according to arrest records.
Schoenhorn said that police have falsely stated “that Ms. Troconis actively assisted co- defendant Dulos in disposing of evidence during six stops along Albany Avenue, when those videos show no such thing.”
The Courant has reported that two days after Dulos allegedly dumped the evidence, a homeless man grabbed the trash bag, opened it and found a bloody pillow and a knife in the bag.
The mantold the Courant he kept the knife and sold it for $5 worth of crack cocaine to a man he called “Fudge” who later traded it with another guy for food. The knife and the pillow haven’t been found.