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NEW CANAAN — The estranged husband of Jennifer Dulos and his girlfriend have been arrested and could face more charges in connection with the New Canaan mother’s disappearance.
Fotis Dulos, 51, and his girlfriend, Michelle C. Troconis, 44, were arrested at an Avon hotel late Saturday night. They are each being held on $500,000 bond on charges of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and first-degree hindering prosecution.
Fotis Dulos is being held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center and Troconis is being held at the New Canaan police station. They are scheduled to appear Monday in state Superior Court in Norwalk.
Fotis Dulos and Troconis became involved in a romantic relationship a year before Jennifer Dulos filed for divorce, according to court filings in the case.
Jennifer Dulos, 50, a mother of five, was last seen dropping off her children at New Canaan Country School on May 24. Her black Chevy Suburban was found later that night on the side of Lapham Road near Waveny Park after she was reported missing
Since Dulos was reported missing, New Canaan, state and federal authorities have been working “around the clock to locate Jennifer by exploring all leads and tips,” New Canaan police said in a statement announcing the arrests on Sunday.
Authorities spent the weekend searching Fotis Dulos’ Farmington home on Jefferson Crossing. Troconis, a businesswoman and mother, began living there with him after Jennifer Dulos moved with her children to New Canaan when she filed for divorce in 2017.
Investigators also searched on Sunday another nearby residence on Mountain Spring Road in Farmington that was developed by Dulos’ custom home building company, Fore Group.
Last week, Fotis Dulos told the broker handling the sale of the Jefferson Crossing house, listed at $4.35 million, that his estranged wife’s disappearance “was a sad situation and he hopes she’s found soon.”
The disappearance of Jennifer Dulos came up in conversation last Monday when Rob Giuffria, managing broker for the West Hartford-based Tea Leaf Realty, spoke about another property he was trying to develop with the Fore Group, the broker said.
Giuffria has been trying to sell the Jefferson Crossing property for more than a year. Giuffria said he last spoke with Jennifer Dulos about a year ago soon after he got the listing.
“She called to ask how it was going,” Giuffria recalled. “I said it was going fine. She was telling me about how great a house it was. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Guiffria is now considering placing the property on “temporary” listing status since he will likely not be able to show the 10,000-square-foot home while Fotis Dulos is held on bond
“We have an unfortunate situation where one of the owners is missing,” Guiffria said.
Fotis Dulos and Troconis were escorted off the Jefferson Crossing property on Friday night. They went to the state police Troop L barracks in Litchfield, where Fotis Dulos provided DNA and hair samples, a source told the Hartford Courant.
Authorities on Sunday extended their search to 80 Mountain Spring Road, located about two miles from the Jefferson Crossing property. More than two dozen state police cars and at least two K-9 units arrived around 8:45 a.m. Sunday, according to the Courant.
The home is listed for sale for nearly $3 million, according to the Fore Group’s website.
The company reconstructed the Mountain Spring Road home last year to include a four-car garage and all-season covered porch off the kitchen and dining room, according to the Fore Group’s website. The Tudor-style home is on five acres and was originally built in 1926, the website said.
Searching for Jennifer
For most of the past week, searches for Jennifer Dulos have been focused in Waveny Park, the Welles Lane neighborhood where Dulos has rented a home for the past two years and at her parents’ home in Pound Ridge, N.Y.
However, the investigation quickly shifted Friday afternoon to the Hartford area after Fotis Dulos was seen on security cameras outside a bakery, a source told the Courant. The woman who answered the phone Sunday morning at Scotts’ Jamaican Bakery declined to comment.
Some two dozen state troopers and firefighters searched the Upper Albany section of the city, first focusing on a storm drain outside of the bakery. Investigators then searched nearby backyards and trash bins, which local residents said were empty after the garbage had been picked up earlier in the day.
Soon after the Hartford search began, authorities arrived at Fotis Dulos’ Farmington home around 6 p.m. Friday, according to the Daily Mail. Investigators were seen talking with Dulos and Troconis in the driveway before going inside the home for about an hour, the Daily Mail reported.
While New Canaan police have been tight-lipped about the investigation, state police sources have provided some insight.
One source told Hearst Connecticut Media last week that blood was discovered inside Jennifer Dulos’ home the day after she was reported missing.
Another source told the Courant a housekeeper arrived at Jennifer Dulos’ home at noon on May 24 and did not notice the blood.
The information tightened the timeframe of when Dulos went missing to sometime between 8 a.m. when she dropped her five children off at school to noon. Dulos also missed appointments she had scheduled for 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. that day, a source told the Courant.
New Canaan police returned to the Lapham Road area Friday morning around the time they believed Dulos’ SUV was left on the side of the road a week earlier. They handed out missing person flyers and spoke to passing motorists in hopes of finding a witness who saw something on May 24.
Custody battle
Jennifer and Fotis Dulos have been involved in a two-year divorce case. In court documents, Jennifer Dulos said she was afraid of her estranged husband and was fearful he would retaliate against her for seeking a divorce.
Jennifer Dulos’ mother, Gloria Farber, has been in her own legal battle with Fotis Dulos. Farber and her late husband’s estate have filed a lawsuit against Fotis Dulos, accusing him of failing to repay $1.7 million in loans he used to purchase properties and build homes for his business.
The Farbers’ Mallard Lake Road home in Pound Ridge, N.Y., was the focus of the authorities’ search on Thursday. The home is about a 15-minute drive from Jennifer Dulos’ New Canaan residence.
Two years ago, Jennifer Dulos abruptly left the Farmington home with her children and moved to New Canaan before filing for divorce the next day. Her sudden departure prompted Fotis Dulos to call 911, saying he was “worried about my wife and kids,” according to audio of the more than four-minute call obtained by the Hartford Courant.
The 911 call is referenced in the nearly 500 pages of divorce records. The records also mention how Fotis Dulos initially believed his wife left with the children for her parents’ home in Pound Ridge.
A status hearing in the divorce case that was scheduled for last Wednesday at the Stamford courthouse was postponed. Last Tuesday, a court-appointed guardian ad litem filed a motion for a hearing “regarding the safety of the children.” A date has not been set for the conference.
Fotis Dulos requested on Wednesday for a judge to allow him to see his children.
A motion filed by his attorney, Michael J. Rose, said the children have been staying at Farber’s New York City apartment under the watch of an armed guard the family hired. Fotis Dulos was turned away by the guard when he tried to visit his children last week, a police source told the New York Post.
Late Friday, Fotis Dulos’ divorce attorney filed a “withdrawal of deposition notices and production requests.” The notice was scheduled for Jennifer Dulos to be deposed on June 10, court records show