The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Attorney: Dulos attempted to lure woman to his home
HARTFORD — A judge has declined to issue a restraining order against the attorney accused of asking Fotis Dulos to intervene in his divorce.
The estranged wife of attorney Kent Mawhinney was seeking to have him banned from contacting her after she said Fotis Dulos tried to lure her to his home just days before his own estranged wife went missing.
“Anyone would be reasonably apprehensive,” the woman’s attorney Zenas Zelotes said Tuesday. “Fotis Dulos shows up and then we see Fotis Dulos in the news.”
Fotis and Jennifer Dulos were embroiled in a bitter twoyear divorce of their own when the 50yearold New Canaan mother vanished on May 24.
One week later, Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, were charged with tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in connection with the disappearance.
Mawhinney’s estranged wife and her attorney contend her husband was using Fotis Dulos as an “intermediary” to violate a criminal protective order.
The order was issued after the Bloomfield attorney, who had been representing Fotis Dulos in civil lawsuits filed by his motherinlaw, was charged in January with sexually assaulting his wife.
Mawhinney’s wife accused him of forcing her to have sex in exchange for living at their home rent free, the woman testified Tuesday.
Fotis Dulos was a central character in Tuesday’s hearing, but he has avoided a subpoena to be deposed in the divorce case. He managed to avoid two state marshals trying to serve him subpoenas to testify, Zelotis told the court.
“I don’t think under the circumstances of his universe, I don’t think we would have had any testimony today,” Zelotes conceded when he explained to the court that Fotis Dulos likely would have invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid selfincrimination.
Judge Robert Nastri also did not allow Mawhinney’s wife to discuss her interactions with Fotis Dulos. Nastri agreed with Mawhinney’s attorney, Jeremy Donnelly, that the conversations were hearsay.
After listening to her testimony, Nastri denied the woman’s request for a restraining order, ruling there was no immediate danger, since the incidents happened months ago.
Nastri did allow the woman to remove Mawhinney’s name as the beneficiary of her $750,000 life insurance policy, which was another step to ensure her safety, Zelotes said.
A restraining order would have allowed the woman to go directly to court officials to seek help if it was violated, Zelotes said. Under a criminal protective order, police and prosecutors have a say on whether the offender violated the court order.
“This is a reasonable step to ensure her safety,” Zelotes told the judge. “Fotis Dulos shows up and he tries to lure my client to his home. A few days later, his wife goes missing. The rape alone was more than sufficient reason for a restraining order, but when you add this chain of events it’s very reasonable.”
Soon after he filed for divorce in January, Mawhinney was charged with sexual assault in a spousal or cohabiting relationship, seconddegree unlawful restraint and disorderly conduct, according to online state judicial records.
A few months later, the woman called police about a man who showed up at her home with a crowbar and a gas can, court documents state. The woman believed the man was hired by her husband to harm her, according to court documents.
The man was connected to Mawhinney, who told police he asked him about six months earlier to fix the garage door, court documents state. No arrests were made.
About a month later, the woman said Fotis Dulos, whom she had only met once before in her husband’s office in 2014, called her out of the blue.
While the woman was not allowed to discuss her interactions with Fotis Dulos in court, she described them in detail in an affidavit in her attorney’s request for the hearing.
The woman said she was aware Jennifer Dulos went missing two days after her last conversation with Fotis Dulos, and that he and Troconis were charged in the disappearance.
However, the woman did not report Fotis Dulos trying to intervene in her divorce until June 26 when she saw her estranged husband taking pictures outside her South Windsor home, according to the court filing.
The woman told police she believed Fotis Dulos was working with her estranged husband “to get rid of her,” according to Mawhinney’s arrest warrant on the violating a protective order charge.
“She stated that she believed that Mawhinney wanted her dead,” the warrant said.
Mawhinney represented Fotis Dulos in three lawsuits filed by his motherinlaw, Gloria Farber, who contends he owes her and her family $2.5 million in loans used for his real estate development company that he never repaid. The Farber family filed the lawsuits in 2018, about a year after Jennifer Dulos filed for divorce.
A few days after Fotis Dulos was arrested in his wife’s disappearance, Mawhinney filed a motion to be removed as his attorney in the Farber lawsuits.
Mawhinney’s wife said she first received a call from Fotis Dulos on May 16, asking her to consider reconciling her marriage.
Fotis Dulos called the next day and said Mawhinney agreed to her terms of reconciliation and asked for them to meet at his Farmington home.
“He suggested that Kent and I can be in one of the rooms and can be intimate,” she said in the affidavit.
The woman and a friend met with Fotis Dulos at a West Hartford bar on May 19, but she said he left abruptly when they refused to go to his home, according to her affidavit.
The woman said they spoke several more times, but ended the communications when Fotis Dulos said Mawhinney was considering having her charged with fraud because of a $300 Macy’s charge, according to her affidavit.
During that final conversation on May 22 — two days before Jennifer Dulos vanished — the woman said she asked Fotis Dulos if he would ever consider getting back together with his wife, according to the affidavit.
“He adamantly said, ‘Oh no . . . but I would like us to be civil and friends for the sake of the kids,’” the woman recalled in the court filing.