Probate case looms after death.
His attorneys, Jennifer Farber Dulos’ mother expected to file over estate
With the death of Fotis Dulos following a suicide attempt, dueling efforts are underway to open a probate file in the case, including one by the mother of Jennifer Farber Dulos, the estranged wife Dulos was accused of killing.
Dulos’ attorneys and Gloria Farber, Farber Dulos’ mother, are both planning to file probate estates in a race to see who can control what few assets he may have had left before police said he killed himself.
Since Farber Dulos is missing, Fotis’ Dulos’ parents are both dead, and his five children are minors, one of Dulos’ closest relatives is Farber, who has been taking care of the couple’s five children since Jennifer disappeared May 24. Dulos apparently didn’t leave a will naming an executor or a beneficiary.
But attorney Norm Pattis said Friday that he would fight Farber from having any control, given the acrimonious relationship between them.
“We obviously are taking actions ourselves to open an estate on behalf of Mr. Dulos and we don’t think that Mrs. Farber should have any involvement,” Pattis said. “This is Mr. Dulos’ estate to be administered not Mrs. Farber’s.”
Attorney Richard Weinstein, who represents Gloria Farber, said Friday that he also plans to open a probate estate for Dulos as a major creditor with a stake in some of the properties owned by The Fore Group, Dulos’ home building company.
Weinstein said that he wouldn’t allow Gloria Farber to personally administer the estate because there are clear conflicts — she is suing her son-in-law, arguing that he owes more than $2 million to the estate of her deceased husband, Hilliard Farber. That action is pending.
“I will ask there be a temporary administrator appointed,” Weinstein said. “I don’t expect they’ll be a positive money flow from his estate. He was selling furniture from the house on eBay so he had no funds.”
Weinstein said if there was anything left of the estate after all the creditors were satisfied the money would go to his children.
Dulos died Thursday, two days after he was rushed to a New York City hospital in the wake of a suicide attempt. Police found Dulos in the garage of his Farmington home Tuesday in the front seat of his Chevrolet Suburban. The garage doors had been closed and a vacuum cleaner hose had been clamped to the tail pipe and run into the interior of the vehicle, sources said.
Farmington police found Dulos after he failed to appear at Stamford Superior Court for a hearing to potentially revoke the $6 million bond placed on him following his arrest earlier this month for the murder of Farber Dulos. The South Carolina company that secured the bond had raised concerns about whether real estate he posted as collateral had been overvalued.
In the wake of his death, who represents Dulos’ estate could become an issue if an unusual attempt by Pattis to push forward with the murder trial moves forward. Pattis has filed an unusual motion seeking to keep the case going by substituting Dulos’ estate as the defendant.
Pattis said he wants the case to continue to trial to vindicate Dulos, who he said has been pilloried by the media and found guilty by the public without ever having a trial. Pattis filed the unprecedented motion after Dulos died Thursday in anticipation that the state will file to dismiss the charges after his death.
On Friday, Pattis filed a separate motion seeking to compel the state turn over all of the evidence from the murder case. The motion said that the state has ignored the request since June and that even though Dulos has died, the state should still be required to turn over the evidence.
“If the State does not possess evidence that proves that Fotis Dulos murdered Jennifer Dulos and actually possesses evidence that exonerates Mr. Dulos, the Dulos children deserve the finality, certainty, and peace of that answer, and they deserve a refocused effort on the part of the State to find, try, and convict Jennifer Dulos’ real killer,” Pattis wrote.
Since there are two petitions to administer Dulos’ estate, the judge will have to hold a hearing to determine which one is more qualified. That hearing would likely take place quickly and each side would have to present who they would chose to be the administrator.
Weinstein said anybody can open a probate case on behalf of someone who has died, but in this case Gloria Farber has a major interest in the estate, particularly Dulos’ Jefferson Crossing home in Farmington.
Gloria Farber has a $2.3 million mortgage on the Jefferson Crossing home and is required to pay $21,000 in property taxes that Dulos has not paid. A trust on her behalf recently filed a foreclosure notice for the house.
Another Fore Group property at 61 Sturbridge Hill Road in New Canaan also is in foreclosure. A third property — 60 Mountain Spring Road in Farmington — has been on the market for several months.
Police believe Dulos went to the Mountain Spring Road property after murdering his wife on the morning of May 24. Police believe that Dulos that morning drove an employee’s red Toyota truck from Farmington to New Canaan, where he was “lying in wait” at her home on Welles Lane in New Canaan. Farber Dulos was last seen that day when she dropped her children at school that morning.
The arrest warrant said after killing Jennifer, Dulos returned to Mountain Spring Road and — along with his then-girlfriend Michelle Troconis — cleaned the Toyota truck. Police said they later found the DNA of Farber Dulos on the front seat of that truck. Troconis is facing conspiracy charges in the case.
Dulos’ financial issues also were part of a recent civil trial in which Gloria Farber sued Dulos, claiming he owed her husband’s estate more than $2 million from loans for The Fore Group to buy houses, fix them up and resell them.
A financial affidavit for Dulos submitted during that trial showed that as of May 7 Dulos owed more than $60,000 in credit card bills, had two outstanding bank loans totaling about $4.2 million and owed Michael Meehan, the guardian ad litem for the couple’s five children, nearly $40,000. Overall he listed assets of $363,000 and debts of nearly $5 million — not including the $2.5 million at dispute in the current trial.
The affidavits do not include certain real estate holdings of Dulos’ Fore Group real estate company. While the documents do list as liabilities sizable loans that Dulos personally guaranteed for houses that are owned by The Fore Group, it doesn’t list those homes as assets. That includes properties, including a house on Mountain Spring Road in Farmington, whose values could exceed the debts listed in the affidavit and could potentially pay off such loans if they were sold.