The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Dulos’ girlfriend released on bond after new arrest
BRIDGEPORT — Michelle Troconis turned herself in Thursday afternoon on a new tampering with evidence charge in connection with Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance.
Troconis surrendered to state police a the Troop G barracks in Bridgeport around 1:30 p.m. and was released just before 3 p.m. after posting $100,000 bond.
Her defense attorney, Andrew Bowman, declined to discuss the specifics of the case after her release
but told reporters his client should be presumed innocent.
Fotis Dulos, 52, and Troconis, 44, have pleaded not guilty to the original hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence charges in connection with Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance.
Fotis Dulos was arrested Wednesday on the additional tampering with evidence charge related to his role in cleaning up a red Toyota pickup truck belonging to one of his workers that police believe was used in connection with his wife’s disappearance, the arrest warrant said.
Fotis Dulos will be arraigned at state Superior Court in Norwalk on the new charge on Sept. 12 and will appear for his next pretrial hearing in the case the following day in Stamford. Troconis will be arraigned on the new charge in Norwalk on Sept. 18 and will have her next pretrial hearing Sept. 20 in Stamford.
State police arrested Fotis Dulos Wednesday afternoon at his Farmington home, while Troconis made arrangements to turn herself in on Thursday.
“Our hearts go out to Ms. Troconis,” Fotis Dulos’ defense attorney Norm Pattis said Thursday. “We are confident that she will, in the end, tell the truth at trial. The state is a terrifying enemy, but a clean conscience is a powerful ally.”
Those comments marked a departure from a statement he released after his client’s arrest Wednesday, in which he called Troconis a “lying lover” in connection with her statements to police.
Troconis met with investigators for a third time on Aug. 13 and admitted that “she had not been truthful” in her prior two interviews, according to Fotis Dulos’ recent arrest warrant.
The latest arrest warrant provides new information and a detailed timeline of the day Jennifer Dulos went missing.
Troconis told police that she did not see Fotis Dulos when she woke up around 6:40 a.m. on the day Jennifer Dulos went missing. She had previously told police that the two of them had shared a shower that morning.
On June 3, two days after Fotis Dulos and Troconis were arrested, state police said they found handwritten notes inside their Jefferson Crossing home in Farmington that investigators came to refer to as the “Alibi Scripts.”
The notes, found in Fotis Dulos’ home office for his real estate development company, Fore Group, specified times and activities for his and Troconis’ whereabouts May 24 and May 25, according to the latest arrest warrant.
Pages included specific activities and times, incoming and outgoing phone calls, and information that was later proven to be inaccurate, as well as alibi witnesses who were determined to be false, according to the warrant.
The new arrest warrants indicate police believe on May 24 Fotis Dulos borrowed a truck belonging to an employee of his company and drove from his Farmington home to New Canaan, where he waited for his estranged wife to return from dropping off the couple’s children at school.
Police said there were signs Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” after finding blood stains and spatter in the garage of her Welles Lane home.
The warrants indicate police believe Fotis Dulos was the perpetrator, and then disposed of Jennifer Dulos’ body, though he has not been charged with murder.
The warrant said video surveillance from New Canaan school buses placed the red truck owned by Fotis Dulos’ coworker 100 feet from where investigators later found Jennifer Dulos’ SUV abandoned near Waveny Park.
Fotis Dulos later told his employee, who owned the pickup truck, to switch the seats with those of a Porsche he owned, according to the warrant. The warrant said the truck’s owner was eliminated as a suspect by cellphone data that was “inconsistent with his involvement in the crime.”
The warrants say the vehicle was seen traveling back to Farmington, where it arrived that afternoon. Later that day, Fotis Dulos and Troconis were seen on surveillance videos in Hartford disposing of garbage later found to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood, according to arrest warrants.
Testing on seats police say were in the vehicle that day — and later kept by the employee after Fotis Dulos “insisted” he change them — revealed they contained a “bloodlike substance” with Jennifer Dulos’ DNA, the warrants state.
During an interview, Troconis said she saw Fotis Dulos cleaning what he described as a coffee spill out of the employee’s truck the afternoon of the disappearance, the warrant said. She told police a towel Fotis Dulos handed her “did not smell of coffee,” according to the warrant.
Five days after the disappearance, Troconis told police she followed Fotis to an Avon car wash, where he was having the employee’s truck cleaned, and dropped him off there later to pick it back up, the warrants state.
Police asked Troconis why Fotis Dulos had the vehicle cleaned five days after his wife disappeared. She replied, “Well obviously…all the evidence says because…you showed me the picture of the blood in the door it’s because the body of Jennifer at some point was in there,” the warrant said.