Jennifer Dulos’ lawyer: Fotis forgets he’s ‘prime suspect’
STAMFORD — The attorney representing Jennifer Dulos in her acrimonious twoyear divorce wants a judge to throw out Fotis Dulos’ bid to have the legal action dismissed, pointing out he’s the main suspect in his client’s disappearance.
“Failure to acknowledge that he is the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance can only be described as being akin to the defendant (Fotis Dulos) having a ‘factual lobotomy’ as to the inconvenient facts as to his apparent involvement in the plaintiff ’s ( Jennifer Dulos) disappearance,” attorney Rueben Midler, representing Jennifer Dulos, wrote in his response filed this week.
Midler also pointed out that divorce proceedings have continued, despite the disappearance of his client, and were actively being adjudicated to determine custody of their five children in the days before she went missing.
According to Midler, there were 497 docket entries as of May 24 — the day his client was last seen after dropping off her five children at a New Canaan school. Midler said 50 additional entries were made between that point and when Fotis Dulos’ attorney, Richard Rochlin, filed his motion to dismiss on Dec. 26.
Midler also wants Fotis Dulos to pay all his attorney fees and legal costs associated with defending the motion to dismiss the divorce and any other legal proceedings he files.
Midler said key issues still need to be addressed, including the distribution of marital assets and the custody of the children.
Rochlin’s motion to dismiss coincided with his request to appeal a probate court judge’s ruling that gave Jennifer Dulos’ mother, Gloria Farber, guardianship of the children.
The custody battle will be the subject of a hearing in Stamford juvenile court on Jan. 9 — the same day Fotis Dulos is scheduled to appear at the courthouse for his next pretrial hearing on the criminal charges related to his estranged wife’s disappearance.
Rochlin said his client plans to seek access to the children when his appeal is heard.
A Stamford family court judge had limited Fotis Dulos’ access to his children prior to the May 24 disappearance. Fotis Dulos was allowed supervised visits with his children, the last of which occurred at his estranged wife’s New Canaan home two days before she vanished.
Fotis Dulos has since been banned from all contact with his children as part of the conditions of his release on bail for charges of tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in the disappearance.
In November, a New Canaan Probate Court judge granted Farber guardianship of the couple’s five children. Farber, who has been granted the right to intervene in the divorce, has been caring for the children since the disappearance and is seeking permanent custody of them.
Jennifer Dulos was last seen on a neighbor’s security camera returning to the Welles Lane home she had been renting around 8:05 a.m. May 24. According to arrest warrants, police believe Fotis Dulos was “lying in wait” when she arrived home from dropping off their children at a nearby school.
Police said two people resembling Fotis Dulos and his former girlfriend Michelle Troconis were captured on video in Hartford later that night around the time Jennifer Dulos was reported missing. The man police contend is Fotis Dulos was seen on the videos dumping bags that were later determined to contain his wife’s blood and clothing, the warrants said.
A separate arrest warrant said Fotis Dulos and Troconis — who faces the same charges — also took a red Toyota Tacoma pickup truck belonging to a Fore Group employee to a car wash in the days after the disappearance. Police said in the warrant that they believe Fotis Dulos drove the truck to New Canaan the morning of the disappearance.
Fotis Dulos also urged the employee to remove the seats, which testing later revealed contained Jennifer Dulos’ blood, according to the warrant.