Fotis Dulos hires new attorney in missing Connecticut mother case
The estranged husband of Jennifer Dulos retained high-profile defense attorney Norm Pattis as new legal counsel for his criminal proceedings; Laura Ingle reports from New Canaan, Connecticut.
In a Fox News exclusive interview Friday, lawyer Norm Pattis says client Fotis Dulos is "emotional, tired, distraught" over the "exhausting ordeal" and disappearance of his estranged wife, Jennifer.
Pattis says Jennifer was "deeply troubled" and "had a troubled past," describing her as a writer who "wrote a manuscript similar to 'Gone Girl.'"
The defense attorney says his client received a $14,000 medical bill in April for blood work Jennifer had completed, although he doesn't know what the testing is for or what ailment his ex-wife may have been suffering from.
"I think she had serious health issues," Pattis said.
Jennifer Dulos was reported missing on May 24 and was last seen driving a black Chevy Suburban as she dropped off her children at their private school in New Canaan.
The couple was in the midst of a bitter custody battle over their five children. Pattis said Jennifer "seemed intent" on moving the children to New York, where her mother lives, against the joint custody agreement.
Court documents paint a different tale, one where Jennifer was "terrified for [her] family's safety." She alleged that her husband, a custom home builder who was born and raised in Greece but went to college at Brown University in the U.S., "has a history of controlling, volatile and delusional behavior."
"In the past, my husband has made references to disappearing to a ski resort, 'where everyone wears masks every day and are indistinguishable from one another,'" Jennifer Dulos claimed in court filings.
Still, Pattis alleges that in the days leading up to her disappearance, Jennifer may have been the one trying to create "a center of gravity in New York" to relocate the children, too, even identifying potential doctors and dentists for her kids.
"She was not settled happily in New Cannan, intending to live there happily ever after," Pattis said.
Fotis Dulos and his live-in girlfriend Michelle Troconis both pleaded not guilty to charges of evidence tampering and hindering prosecution last week.
Fotis Dulos' DNA was found mixed with his wife's blood on a kitchen faucet in her New Canaan home she lived in with her children after the couple split, according to State's Attorney Richard Colangelo. Police say the house also had evidence of blood spatter and cleanup attempts, according to the arrest report.
"There is such a phenomenon as transfer DNA and I think that's what we're looking at here," Pattis said, relaying that Fotis Dulos had been at Jennifer's house two days prior to her disappearance for dinner and the "speck" of blood found on the faucet could have come from that encounter.
Pattis says he remains skeptical of the state's evidence against his client, which also includes surveillance footage of a man resembling Fotis Dulos and Troconis making 30 stops in a vehicle and dumping clothing, sponges and other items which have tested positive for the missing mom's DNA at at least two of those stops.
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Pattis has not seen the state's security footage but says he finds it puzzling that the "high-resolution cameras," able to spot traces of blood on the bags being disposed, were unable to positively identify Dulos or his truck, which authorities have said match the make and model despite a license plate number not being visible on camera.
"I have reasons to doubt that it's reliable," Pattis said of the footage.
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