Judge to hear Troconis attorney, prosecutor claims of misconduct
STAMFORD — The attorney for Michelle Troconis and prosecutors in the Jennifer Dulos case are continuing to spar on paper over claims of misconduct and a judge said Wednesday he will hear their arguments in February.
Troconis, charged in the death and disappearance of Jennifer Dulos, appeared Tuesday in state Superior Court in Stamford with her family and her attorney, Jon Schoenhorn, but no action took place in front of a judge.
Instead, the prosecution met with Schoenhorn behind closed doors without the case coming up in court.
They returned for a brief hearing Wednesday when Judge Gary White said he will hear arguments about the requests to disqualify the defense and prosecution in the case on Feb. 23.
Schoenhorn and prosecutors in the
case have called for the removal of each other over the handling of a sweatshirt that both sides contend may be evidence in the case.
As recently as Monday, Schoenhorn filed a memorandum opposing his removal as Troconis’ attorney while seeking deep sanctions against prosecutors, including the dismissal of the charges against his client or the transfer of the case to another jurisdiction.
Prosecutors filed a motion in October, seeking Schoenhorn’s removal on the grounds he submitted a sweatshirt containing the DNA of an employee of Jennifer Dulos’ estranged husband as evidence in the case through an attorney representing him.
The employee, who investigators said accused Fotis Dulos of trying to frame him, has not been charged in the case.
About a week after the prosecution’s motion, Schoenhorn filed his own request for a judge to remove the entire Norwalk-Stamford State’s Attorney’s Office from the case for an alleged violation of attorney-client privilege.
In his October motion, Schoenhorn claimed state prosecutors “deliberately violated” his client’s Sixth Amendment rights “through its knowing and intentional invasion of the attorneyclient privilege” by reading a note written by him that was in the box with the sweatshirt.
Schoenhorn contends that more than 17 months ago he was being represented by attorney Tara Knight, who turned the sweatshirt over to investigators in 2021 on his behalf. Knight is now a Superior Court judge.
Prosecutors filed an objection last week to Schoenhorn’s October motion, stating Troconis’ Sixth Amendment rights were not violated because there was no evidence Knight was her attorney when she contacted law enforcement. If Knight was acting as Schoenhorn’s counsel, Troconis cannot seek a dismissal “based on an alleged violation of Schoenhorn’s attorney-client privilege” with Knight, Stamford/ Norwalk State’s Attorney Paul Ferencek wrote in the objection.
In his motion filed Monday, Schoenhorn said former Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo, who was still involved in the prosecution of the case, did not make an issue of the letter or the sweatshirt and did not call for his removal in the case.
An affidavit signed by one of Knight’s former staff members at her law firm submitted with Schoenhorn’s motion Monday indicates that she told state police investigators, including Detective Corey Clabby, that she couldn’t reveal how the box with the sweatshirt came into her possession “due to the attorney-client privilege.”
Schoenhorn now wants a judge to either dismiss the case against his client or replace the state police Western District Major Crime Squad, which has been investigating the death of Jennifer Dulos for more than three years, with another unit and transfer the court case to a different jurisdiction.
“A letter from one attorney to another, which explicitly references the author’s client in connection with potential evidence in the case, is so obviously an attorney-client privileged communication that Clabby’s failure to recognize it as such is inexcusable,” Schoenhorn said in Monday’s filing.
In his objection, Ferencek claimed the contents in the box, including the sweatshirt and Schoenhorn’s letter, were not protected by attorney-client privilege, and even if they were, “the privilege was waived when Knight voluntarily turned over the materials to the state.”
Schoenhorn will be represented by attorney John Gulash during the hearing in February.
“I think the parties agree if I were to determine that the letter was not a request for legal advice or getting legal advice then that’s the end of it,” White said Wednesday about the intent of the hearing.
In her motion to remove him from the case, Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Manning said Schoenhorn has refused to tell prosecutors where he got the sweatshirt, but has claimed he may use it in the defense of his client since it contained a hair with the DNA of Pawel Gumienny, a former employee of Fotis Dulos.
“Even if Schoenhorn is not ultimately called as a witness, he can still be disqualified since his performance as an advocate can be impaired by his relationship to the events in question,” said Manning, who later added that the jury may consider Schoenhorn to have a “nefarious” motive and “hold it against his client.”
Jennifer Dulos vanished from her New Canaan home on May 24, 2019. The mother of five has never been found, but has been presumed dead by police and her family.
Fotis Dulos faced murder, kidnapping and other charges in his estranged wife’s death and disappearance when he died by suicide in January 2020.
Troconis, a former girlfriend who lived with Fotis Dulos at the time of the disappearance, and his longtime friend and attorney, Kent Mawhinney, have each pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. Troconis has also pleaded not guilty to tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution.
Troconis has been free after posting $2.1 million bond and is required to wear a GPS monitoring device. Schoenhorn has argued vigorously for the removal of the monitoring device and has several motions pending before the court.
Mawhinney was free on bond, but was remanded back to prison after probation officials who oversee the GPS monitoring system contended he tampered with the device. Prosecutors have indicated he may testify against Troconis if she takes her case to trial.