Attorney: Audit request by Farber ‘an extreme burden’ for Fotis Dulos

The attorney representing Fotis Dulos in the $2.5 million lawsuits filed against him by his mother-in-law is objecting to an inspection of his client’s finances.

In a response filed Monday, attorney William Murray is calling the motion to have his client’s financial records reviewed “another attempt to harass” Fotis Dulos and his company, Fore Group, as the lawsuits move toward a trial later this year.

The motion was the latest in a series filed by both sides as the case has heated up since the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.

Attorney Richard Weinstein, representing her mother, Gloria Farber, filed the motion and a memorandum last month and again last week, seeking an inspection of Fotis Dulos’ personal accounts and his company’s books. Weinstein contended in court filings that Fotis Dulos supplied contradictory information about his finances as part of the lawsuits and is trying to “disseminate” his assets as part of his divorce to Jennifer Dulos, who has been missing since May 24.

Farber and the estate of her late husband Hilliard filed civil lawsuits against Fotis Dulos and his company about a year into the couple’s divorce. Farber and her attorney contend that Fotis Dulos owes the family $2.5 million in unpaid business loans.

Fotis Dulos contends in court documents that the money was a gift. Murray said in Monday’s response to the request for a financial review that there are no promissory notes, making the lawsuits hinge on whether the money was a gift or a loan.

“The motion (for the review) provides no basis as to why there should be any forensic inspection” of the Fore Group records, Murray said. “The request is not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.”

Weinstein and attorneys representing Fotis Dulos have been sparring publicly for months as the search for Jennifer Dulos continues.

Fotis Dulos, 52, pleaded not guilty Thursday to the latest tampering with evidence charge. The charge is related to Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis cleaning up a pickup truck — owned by a former Fore Group employee — that police say was involved in the disappearance.

Under the direction of Fotis Dulos, the employee removed the seats from his truck, but he kept them and turned them over to investigators who found Jennifer Dulos’ blood on one of them, the arrest warrants state.

Troconis, 44, will be arraigned Wednesday on the charge in state Superior Court in Norwalk. Fotis Dulos and Troconis previously pleaded not guilty to the original tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges.

Weinstein said Fotis Dulos has not paid alimony or child support since his wife filed for divorce in 2017 and stopped paying the mortgage on his Farmington home last November. Weinstein’s client, who put up $2.5 million in cash collateral so Fotis and Jennifer Dulos could purchase the home in 2012, filed last week to foreclose on the property.

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 15,000square-foot home at 4 Jefferson Crossing, Weinstein last week.

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 was charged in her daughter’s disappearance. Weinstein is now seeking to include the foreclosure proceedings in the lawsuit.

Weinstein has contended for months that Fotis Dulos used his business accounts as his personal “piggy bank,” paying for claimed business expenses such as hotel rooms and items bought at retail stores with his personal funds and then reimbursing himself hundreds of thousands of dollars from Fore Group accounts.

Murray is also objecting to a review of his client’s finances on the grounds it would take “hundreds” of hours for someone to go through the financial records, which are located at the Farmington home where Fotis Dulos also runs his business.

“Additionally, the request is unduly burdensome and overly broad,” Murray said. “To allow some unspecified person to comb through the records of Defendant Fore Group Inc., located in the home office of Defendant Dulos, for the last three years would be an extreme burden and inconvenience for both the Defendant Fore Group Inc., and Defendant Dulos, even if the plaintiff pays for the examination.”

Murray also said Weinstein has not made the argument to the court that any investigation of the Fore Group’s finances has anything to do with the present case.

“Some showing should be made by the plaintiff before any such examination is allowed,” Murray said.