Judge sides with state, won’t move forward with Dulos murder case

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    STAMFORD, CT (WFSB ) — A judge sided with state prosecutors regarding the murder case against Fotis Dulos.

On Tuesday, a judge said they won’t move forward with a trial regarding the murder charges against Fotis Dulos, saying there can’t be a trial without a defendant.

Fotis Dulos was pronounced dead on Jan. 30. He died by suicide by way of carbon monoxide poisoning.

His death came a few weeks after he was charged in the murder of his estranged wife Jennifer Farber Dulos.

Dulos’ attorney Norm Pattis said Tuesday that the charges being nolled wasn’t the outcome he was hoping for.

“This was not the ending we anticipated and the form we hoped. We hoped fully well to stand in front of you with the charges against Mr. Dulos by way of an acquittal. Instead they were nolled, incident as a result of his death,” Pattis said on Tuesday.

Before that inside court, Pattis had objected the motion to no longer prosecute his client, saying he wanted a trial to clear his client’s name.

In fact, Pattis even outlined a new theory, saying Jennifer came to a violent end at the hands of a third party, and Fotis Dulos disposed of debris, but not knowing what it was.

Pattis said someone dumped the trash on Fotis’ lawn.

That’s when the prosecutor cut him off and the judge told him to wrap it up, eventually noting the state’s request to no longer prosecute the case.

“Obviously we were working on development of that evidence to present at trial in September. There will be no trial. We won’t say anything further about that. As for the bags and the disposition of evidence on Farmington Avenue. We’ve said all we intend to say about that. We said it in open court,” Pattis said outside court on Tuesday.

He added that they are looking to possibly appeal this move.

“Obviously the gag order was an imposition. We remain deeply offended by the Supreme Court’s decision to dump the issue last week, and we are actively evaluating our chances of bringing that to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Pattis said.

In the past, Pattis has said that a gag order made it difficult for him to defend his client.

Dulos and his estranged wife, Jennifer, were in a bitter divorce and custody battle over their five children when she went missing in May of 2019.

According to arrest warrants, Jennifer was believed to have been attacked inside her garage at her New Canaan home after she dropped off her children at school.

The search warrant stated that someone tried to clean up the crime scene.

Two other people, Michelle Troconis and Kent Mawhinney, are facing charges connected to Farber Dulos’ presumed death.

Fotis Dulos was initially charged with a couple of counts of tampering with evidence and one count of hindering prosecution.

Troconis, his then-girlfriend, was also previously charged with two counts of tampering with evidence and a single count of hindering prosecution.

The first warrant, issued back in June, detailed how Fotis and Troconis allegedly dumped trash bags containing items with Jennifer;s blood on them in more than 30 dumpsters throughout Hartford. Surveillance cameras recorded what appeared to be the couple.

The trash bags were brought to a trash facility, which prompted a weeks-long search there.

Channel 3 will have more on the latest developments throughout the day.

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