Who testified — and didn’t — in final week of Troconis trial
STAMFORD — The jury in Michelle Troconis’ trial on murder conspiracy charges in connection with the death and disappearance of Jennifer Dulos heard from the trial’s final witnesses Friday, but Michelle Troconis was not among them.
Troconis declined to testify before her lawyer Jon Schoenhorn rested the defense’s case, with closing arguments scheduled for Tuesday morning.
Troconis, 49, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. She is accused of trying to create an alibi for her former boyfriend, Fotis Dulos, the morning his estranged wife went missing and helping to clean a former Dulos employee’s pickup truck police believe was used in the crime.
Fotis Dulos died by suicide in January 2020 while facing murder and other charges in the case. Jennifer Dulos has never been found, but she has been declared legally dead.
Here are some developments from the last week of testimony in the trial.
Gloria Farber is state’s final witness
Jennifer Dulos’ five children watched on Wednesday as their grandmother, Gloria Farber, took the stand.
Farber, the state’s final witness, entered the courtroom in Stamford Wednesday with her five grandchildren trailing behind her. Wednesday marked the first time Jennifer Dulos’ children attended the trial concerning her disappearance and presumed death.
During her testimony, which lasted less than 10 minutes, Farber testified that before Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance on May 24, 2019, the mother of five had “never” missed one of her children’s birthdays or “name days,” which is a Greek tradition.
Farber testified that neither she nor her grandchildren have heard from or seen Jennifer Dulos since that spring day in 2019.
Farber said Jennifer Dulos had plans that day in May to meet with her and the children in New York City following a doctor appointment. But she never showed up, Farber said.
Farber’s testimony appeared to take aim at Schoenhorn’s insinuations during trial that Jennifer Dulos may have run away, as Fotis Dulos reportedly told many of his associates she had done in the past.
During cross-examination, Schoenhorn tried to pin down whether Farber had called Jennifer Dulos on May 23, 2019, to make plans for the following day.
The questions were an attempt by Schoenhorn to corroborate calls that jurors had seen made from a phone that had connected via Bluetooth to Jennifer Dulos’ car around 2 p.m. on the day she disappeared — a point in time after, police have surmised, she already had been incapacitated or killed.
When Farber finished testifying, she and the children left the courtroom, along with a number of their supporters who were present on Wednesday.
Mawhinney doesn’t take witness stand
Assistant State’s Attorney Sean McGuinness ended the state’s case on Tuesday with the revelation that Kent Mawhinney would not be testifying in the case against Troconis.
The prosecution had said before the Troconis trial started that Mawhinney could be called to testify, and was included on a list of potential witnesses during jury selection. However, on Tuesday, McGuinness revealed that Mawhinney would be “unavailable’ to take the witness stand.
“Kent Mawhinney of course is a co-conspirator in this matter, he’s been arrested, the charges remain pending,” McGuninness addressed the court outside the presence of the jury. “He undoubtedly has Fifth Amendment privilege, therefore, is unavailable to both parties. Given that we are going to be resting (Wednesday), I just wanted to indicate that for the record, obviously, there shouldn’t be any sort of missing witness arguments during closing arguments ... in light of that fact, he’s unavailable.”
The next day, Mawhinney’s attorney, Jeffrey Kestenband, said his client had not invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not testify, so the circumstances surrounding why he didn’t testify remain unclear.
Mawhinney is awaiting his own trial on a conspiracy to commit murder charge. An attorney, he is accused of trying to create an alibi for his longtime friend and former client, Fotis Dulos, on the morning of the disappearance on May 24, 2019.
Mawhinney was also connected with an East Granby gun club where witnesses told investigators they found what they said looked like a “human grave” leading up to the disappearance, according to the warrant for his arrest. Investigators wrote in the arrest warrant that the hole was later covered and no remains or signs of Jennifer Dulos were found at the site.
Mawhinney briefly eluded state police on Jan. 7, 2020, as they sought to take him into custody, officials said at the time. He was later apprehended at gunpoint during a Tolland traffic stop, police said.
Defense rests after two experts, others
The defense rested its case Friday after presenting two experts, Fotis Dulos’ former divorce attorney and several others in three days — but not Troconis, who told a judge she had discussed her options with her lawyers and opted not to testify.
Elizabeth Loftus, who specializes in human memory, eyewitness testimony and false memories, was the first expert to testify. She posed an alternative theory to explain the inconsistencies in Troconis’ statements to police over three interviews.
“As humans, we make mistakes and one of the common reasons we make mistakes is that people feed us misinformation or they tell us things that aren’t true or they tell us things that are highly suggestive or biased, and that can contaminate somebody’s memory, transform the memory, make them doubt their own memory. And when that happens to people, they are not deliberately lying,” Loftus told the media Thursday.
“I think the prosecution in this case wants the jury to believe that she’s a big, fat liar, and there’s an alternative explanation here,” she added.
During his cross-examination, Assistant State’s Attorney Sean McGuinness grilled Loftus on her impartiality as an expert witness, as well as past cases on which she has worked.
Loftus said she has testified as an expert in trials all over the world more than 300 times, only one of which was on behalf of prosecutors. McGuinness pointed out Loftus testified as a defense witness for Ted Bundy in an aggravated kidnapping trial. She also consulted with defense attorneys on the cases of Timothy McVeigh, O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Jerry Sandusky, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein and Robert Durst and testified on behalf of the defense of Phil Spector.
Viorica Marian, a professor from Northwestern University, testified on Friday to how language affects the brain, primarily how learning more than one language changes the way people think and how the brain functions.
After reviewing footage and transcripts of Troconis’ police interviews, Marian determined Troconis has conversational
English at about a “medium proficiency.” She said there were multiple instances of Troconis using Spanish words and grammar while speaking English.
“There is an opportunity for miscommunication,” she said. “And the lower the proficiency, the more opportunity for miscommunication and misunderstandings and misspeaking as well.”
Attorney Michael Rose, who represented Fotis Dulos in his custody battle with Jennifer Dulos in 2019, also testified. When he entered the divorce case, Dulos was not allowed to see his children at all, though that changed sometime in March 2019, he said.
Rose recounted how he and Fotis Dulos had reviewed a custody report at the offices of attorney Michael Meehan in April 2019, and how his client reacted to the report.
“He was very happy with what was there, pleased. He just seemed relieved and more optimistic than I’d seen him in a while,” Rose said.
The first witness to take the stand was Robert “Hutch” Haines, who owns a water ski pond in Avon that Troconis and Fotis Dulos frequented.
Haines was one of six people who attended a dinner party at Fotis Dulos’ and Troconis’ home in Farmington the evening before Jennifer Dulos disappeared. Haines, as well as Stephen and Beth Reich, testified that there was nothing unusual about the dinner.
“It was just a normal evening,” Stephen Reich said. After being asked further questions by Schoenhorn, he said, “There was nothing that jumped out to me, even with the benefit of hindsight, that something was wrong.”
Haines also became emotional as he described how the search for Jennifer Dulos affected his pond, calling it “probably one of the most painful, painful times in my life.”
“Our pond, it’s sacred ground to us,” he said. “We have 30 people in our club that love that place. And the state police come in with dogs and they search the place with dogs and then they put a boat in the water and they go over the whole pond with a boat looking for a body.”
The defense called several others to the stand, including Connecticut State Police Sgt. Christopher Allegro, who interviewed Fotis Dulos’ former employee Pawel Gumienny; Cheryl Briere, a hairstylist who colored Troconis’ hair on May 25, 2019; and Troconis’ friend Clara “Petu” Duperron.