Judge: Dulos fabricated evidence, estate owes Farber $1.9 million

HARTFORD — A Superior Court Judge awarded Gloria Farber nearly $2 million Monday after concluding that her son-inlaw, Fotis Dulos, fabricated evidence in the lawsuits she had filed against him.

Judge Cesar Noble’s decision pointedly discredited Fotis Dulos’ testimony during the two-day civil trial in December when he testified that his father-in-law, Hillard Farber, forgave the business loans before he died in 2017.

Noble also contended in the six-page decision that Fotis Dulos fabricated checks entered as evidence to make it appear that he repaid large sums of the loans from the Farbers to his high-end real estate business, Fore Group.

The resolution of the lawsuits came months after Fotis Dulos died Jan. 30 from an apparent suicide while he faced murder and other charges in connection with the death and disappearance of Farber’s daughter, Jennifer Dulos, who vanished May 24, 2019 and who police have presumed dead.

Attorney Kent Mawhinney, who at one point represented Fotis Dulos in the lawsuits, and Michelle Troconis, his former girlfriend, have each been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the case. Troconis also faces tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges.

The estate of Fotis Dulos is now in probate as Farber raises the five Dulos children.

“Justice has been done,” said attorney Richard Weinstein, who represented Farber in the lawsuits. “I am very appreciative of the judge’s analysis of the evidence.”

Weinstein said beneath his polished veneer, Fotis Dulos was a “very, very deceitful” person who was “deceitful” about the way he operated his business. “He felt he had things coming to him,” Weinstein said Monday.

The attorney plans to file a claim against the estate of Fotis Dulos for the $1.9 million that Noble awarded to his client.

“I’m going to try and recover as much money as I can for the children,” Weinstein said.

Attorney William Murray, who represented Fotis Dulos in the lawsuits at the trial, did not return phone calls Monday.

Fotis Dulos died deeply in debt with Farber also filing to foreclose on his Farmington home and Danbury Savings Bank moving to foreclose on a New Canaan property that Fore Group was trying to sell.

Gloria Farber filed twin lawsuits in 2018 contending that Fotis Dulos owed her family more than $2.5 million in loans her husband made for the Fore Group.

Fotis and Jennifer Dulos were also paying on a $500,000 loan that was used to build their Farmington home at 4 Jefferson Crossing until the couple separated and she fled to a rented home in New Canaan in June 2017.

Fotis Dulos had stopped repaying the loans when Hilliard Farber died in early 2017, court papers said.

In court, Fotis Dulos testified he and his fatherin-law had a good relationship. Fotis Dulos also said after his fifth child was born in 2010, Hilliard Farber told him any money he gave after that point would be a gift.

Fotis Dulos testified that Gloria and Hilliard Farber had made annual gifts to him and their daughter to bring down the principal balance of the loan. The gifts stopped after Hilliard Farber died and Jennifer Dulos filed for divorce, according to testimony.

By the end of the trial, Murray contended the Farbers owed his client $1 million based on an accounting of the Fore Group’s records.

Noble, however, concluded that the checks were created for the trial and had never been given to Hilliard Farber, the decision said.

“The court does not credit Dulos’ testimony claiming diminution of the monies so loaned either by way of checks appearing in exhibit G, which the court finds to have been fabricated by Dulos, his testimony that Farber verbally forgave the loans,” and Fotis Dulos’ claims that he made a simple error in his tax returns that shifted the loan amounts owed to “equity.”

Noble also didn’t believe that any part of the outstanding loan balance could be attributed to construction work that Fotis Dulos had done on the Farber’s second home in Pound Ridge, N.Y.

In the decision, Noble also noted that Fotis Dulos reimbursed himself for gasoline and other items, including vacations with Troconis from company funds without keeping any records as to which costs were legitimate business expenses.