INSIDE: Jennifer Dulos’ mother files to foreclose on Fotis Dulos’ Farmington home.
Attorneys for trust formed by motherinlaw claim failure to make payments on mortgage
FARMINGTON — The trust established by attorneys for Jennifer Dulos’ mother has filed to foreclose on the home where Fotis Dulos has been living and stopped paying the mortgage nearly a year ago.
Gloria Farber, who is also suing her soninlaw for $2.5 million in unpaid loans, had been making payments on the Farmington home’s $2.3 million mortgage since Fotis Dulos stopped paying in November 2018, according to attorney Richard Weinstein, who is representing her in the civil lawsuits.
The foreclosure action filed Tuesday by Weinstein and a trustee for a trust set up to deal with the various financial issues the family has with Fotis Dulos are demanding he pay the balance or get out of the house. They are asking a judge to require Fotis Dulos to pay legal fees and costs associated with the foreclosure action.
The Farber family put up as collateral $2.3 million in securities and cash to secure a mortgage from BNY Mellon in 2012, allowing Jennifer and Fotis Dulos to own the 15,000squarefoot home at 4 Jefferson Crossing, Weinstein said Wednesday.
Fotis Dulos, 52, had been living in the home with his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, 44, and her daughter after Jennifer Dulos moved to New Canaan with their five children when she filed for divorce in 2017.
When Fotis Dulos stopped paying the mortgage last November, Weinstein said Farber picked up the payments to avoid having BNY Mellon take the family’s securities that were put up as collateral.
Farber bought the mortgage from BNY Mellon in July after Fotis Dulos and Troconis were charged in the disappearance of her daughter. The trust is now foreclosing on the home to get Fotis Dulos off the property, court papers said.
A heating and air condition company that is suing Fotis Dulos for an unpaid balance of about $25,000 has also filed a lien against the property, the court papers said.
The company did work for Fotis Dulos on one of the Farmington real estate properties he was hoping to sell, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by Glasco Heating & Air Conditioning. In addition, Fotis Dulos owes the town of Farmington $21,000 in unpaid property taxes for 2018, the foreclosure documents said.
The sixbedroom home, which has been on the market for more than a year and is listed at $4.35 million, was part of a private development built by Fotis Dulos’ real estate company, Fore Group.
The realtor has said the attention of the highprofile investigation into the May 24 disappearance of Jennifer Dulos has had an effect on the sale of the home, which has been the target of numerous law enforcement searches.
Fotis Dulos has remained in the home while out on bail on charges related to his wife’s disappearance.
Fotis Dulos has twice conducted sitdown interviews with the media at the home since his wife went missing.
Dateline NBC aired an hourlong segment on the case Monday that included an interview with Fotis Dulos in the foyer of the home.
In July, NBC New York interviewed Fotis Dulos on the property, sitting down in the kitchen and also walking outside on the more than 2acre plot.
Weinstein said in a court hearing last week that his client’s soninlaw has not paid the mortgage since last November, and has not contributed child support or alimony since Jennifer Dulos filed for divorce.
Weinstein said he believed Fotis Dulos was “systematically” disseminating his assets after the death of Farber’s husband, who financially supported the Fore Group by loaning money so his soninlaw could build and sell highend homes.
In court papers filed in July, Weinstein claimed the Fore Group’s books show Fotis Dulos was paying “business expenses” with his personal accounts and then reimbursing himself through the company.
The expenses were “highly questionable” and include reimbursements for Amazon, Home Goods, Target, thousands of dollars in gas, “various motels,” Uber and for a home office in his Farmington residence that he stopped paying the mortgage on months ago, Weinstein said.
Weinstein has argued that his client has been paying for the Farmington home, while also supporting the five Dulos children and has since been caring for them since their mother disappeared.
Farber, 84, has been granted the right to intervene in her daughter’s contentious twoyear divorce and has maintained custody of the couple’s five children since Jennifer Dulos went missing. Farber is now seeking sole legal custody of them.
Fotis Dulos has been banned from contacting his children since he and Troconis were originally arrested in June on tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges.
Investigators said they were seen in Hartford the night of the disappearance and a man resembling Fotis Dulos was caught on video dumping bags that were later determined to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood, according to arrest warrants.
Fotis Dulos and Troconis were arrested again last week on a new tampering with evidence charge for their efforts to clean up a Toyota Tacoma police believe was used in connection with Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance, according to the latest arrest warrants.
The truck belonged to a former Fore Group employee who told investigators Fotis Dulos ordered him to swap out the seats in the vehicle, according to the warrant. However, the employee kept the seats without Fotis Dulos knowing and turned them over to investigators who found Jennifer Dulos’ blood on one of them, the warrant said.
Police believe Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” based on evidence found in the garage of her New Canaan home, the warrants state.
Fotis Dulos will be arraigned Thursday in state Superior Court in Norwalk on the new tampering with evidence charge. He is scheduled to appear for his next pretrial hearing Friday in Stamford.
Troconis will be arraigned Sept. 18 in Norwalk on the new charge and will appear for a pretrial hearing Sept. 20 in Stamford.