Fotis Dulos returns to court today to face charges
With the whereabouts of his estranged wife Jennifer Farber Dulos still unknown and a state police investigation squarely focused on him, Farmington developer Fotis Dulos is expected to return to court today when a series of recently filed motions are expected to be discussed.
The last time Dulos appeared in Superior Court in Stamford, prosecutors announced they had DNA evidence placing Dulos in the New Canaan home of Farber Dulos, who has been missing since May 24. After Dulos’ June 11 criminal court hearing, he then landed in family court that same day where he refused to testify at a hearing about the custody of his five children, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He eventually walked out of court in an orange prison jumpsuit free after posting $500,000 bail.
Farber Dulos filed for divorce from her husband in June 2017. The couple had been married since August 2004. They have been embroiled in a contentious divorce and child custody case for the past two years.
Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, both have pleaded not guilty to hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence charges related to Farber Dulos’ disappearance. Troconis is also free after posting $500,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in Stamford Superior Court on Aug. 19.
The charges against the couple stem from surveillance videos taken on Albany Avenue in Hartford on the evening of May 24 which show a man who looks like Dulos throwing trash bags into two garbage cans. State police searching the trash bins found several items linked to the Farber Dulos investigation, including a bloody Vineyard Vines shirt they believe Farber Dulos was wearing earlier that day when she disappeared. DNA testing revealed the blood on the shirt and other items is hers.
Since the arrests, a series of motions have been filed in court, mostly filed by Dulos’ defense attorney, Norm Pattis. The motions before Judge John F. Blawie include:
A request by Dulos to unseal Farber Dulos’ medical records. Pattis has possession of billing records that show she had $14,000 worth of tests, blood work and other diagnostic treatment from February through April of this year. Pattis said they want to review the medical records so they can evaluate whether “Ms. Dulos, alarmed by her diagnosis and fearing that she might not be able to raise the children on her own, took steps to cause her own disappearance in such a way as to raise suspicions about Mr. Dulos.”
A request by Dulos to unseal a custody study done by a New York City psychiatrist as part of the couple’s contentious divorce. Pattis has argued that information in the study is “necessary to his defense” because it will establish “Fotis Dulos had no motive to cause her disappearance,” and that she had motive to cast suspicion on him. The defense says the study also rebuts claims from Farber Dulos that Dulos was violent or menacing toward her. The report has been sealed by a family court judge.
A 10-page defense motion seeking to have the two charges — hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence — against Dulos dismissed because there is insufficient evidence to proceed without other felony charges against him. Pattis said to charge someone with hindering prosecution, there must be an accompanying felony charge that is statutorily required for the state to prove its case. As for the tampering with evidence charge, Pattis argued there is no evidence to support that the defendant knew that an official proceeding was imminent.
A motion by Pattis to obtain further discovery documents from the state. Stamford/Norwalk State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo turned over 26 discs showing video surveillance on Albany Avenue which the state alleges shows Dulos dumping two trash bags into garbage cans. The bags contained bloody items that matched the DNA of Farber Dulos.
A motion by Stamford/ Norwalk State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. asking the judge to impose a gag order on all lawyers involved in the case, a motion that Pattis has vigorously opposed, arguing that he has a right to defend his client who has been the subject of intense media focus and is constantly being asked “Where’s Jennifer?”
At Dulos’ June 11 court appearance, Colangelo announced that recent lab results from police investigators showed the DNA of Dulos mixed with Farber Dulos’ blood on a faucet in the kitchen of Farber Dulos’ New Canaan home. Colangelo strongly objected to the bail reduction for Dulos and asked Blawie instead to raise the bail amount to $850,000. He told the judge there was no explanation for Dulos’ blood to be on the faucet.
Blawie kept the bail amount at $500,000 and Dulos was released later that day with the requirement he not leave the state and wear a GPS ankle monitor. Another motion that Pattis has filed is to change the GPS monitoring from his ankle to his wrist.
Farber Dulos disappeared on the morning of May 24 after she dropped her children off at the New Canaan Country School. She missed two appointments in New York City and was reported missing around 7 p.m. At almost that same time the surveillance cameras picked up a man looking like Dulos wearing a baseball cap and a white T-shirt and driving a black Ford Raptor dropping the bags in the garbage.
The Courant has reported that some of that garbage was found that weekend by a Hartford man rummaging through trash. The man told The Courant that he found a bloody pillow and a knife in the garbage. He kept the knife and traded it too a man he knew as “Fudge” for a $5 rock of crack cocaine.
The Courant also has reported among the items police have recovered is a Vineyard Vines shirt that Farber Dulos was believed to be wearing the day she disappeared, a bra, two mops and sponges with traces of her blood on them.
State police were made aware of the garbage dumping a few days after Farber Dulos disappeared when federal authorities told them Dulos’ phone had pinged on Albany Avenue that night.
They found some of the items that were discarded and then spent three weeks searching through a mountain of trash at the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority’s trash-to-energy plant on Maxim Road in Hartford’s South Meadows. A corps of state police, using German Shepherd cadaver dogs, have been shifting through the garbage searching for more evidence. It is unclear if they found any evidence relating to the case.