WHAT DOES JUSTICE FOR JENNIFER ACTUALLY MEAN?

In a Court filing requesting a restraining order against her ex-husband, Fotis Dulos, Jennifer Farber-Dulos stated, "I am afraid of my husband.  He is dangerous and ruthless when he believes that he has been wronged.  During the course of our marriage, he has told me about sickening revenge fantasies and plans to cause physical harm to those who have wronged him."  Judge Nelson-Heller denied the request for a restraining order, and in retrospect we all wish she hadn't.  Of course, with a man intent upon murder, it's not very likely a restraining order will stop him.  Still...

When I reviewed the Dulos case, primarily through reading articles published by The Hartford Courant, I investigated whether there was anything about Fotis Dulos which could have warned people in advance what he was capable of. In doing so, I realized we certainly weren't going to get any information from Dr. Stephen Humphrey who was Fotis Dulos' therapist.  Dr. Humphrey did a psychological examination of Fotis Dulos on behalf of the Court and determined that he "had no psychopathology" and presents "as gregarious and confident."  After what happened to Jennifer, we'd all like to know how he could be so far wrong.  

As it turns out, the reason why is that Dr. Humphrey solely used one test--the PAI test (Personality Assessment Inventory) along with meeting him for 20 hours.  According to google, the PAI can test for Somatic Complaints, Anxiety, Anxiety-Related Disorders, Depression, Mania, Paranoia, Schizophrenia, Borderline Features, Antisocial Features, Alcohol Problems, and Drug Problems. It is a self report inventory with 344 items that are answered on a four point scale. This is a problem because, as "Scientific American" reports, self inventory personality tests are not as accurate as others. Not only that, from my understanding, a psychological evaluation consists of numerous tests, not just one--some of them self report and others not.  

To be certain of this, I did a quick search of the internet and this is what I got from Psychology Today, "Psychological testing and evaluation consists of a series of tests that help determine the cause of mental health symptoms and disorders, to determine the correct diagnosis and follow up with the appropriate course of treatment."  In other words, "a series of tests", not just one.  When I had my last psychological evaluation for family court, I took five different tests.  How is it that Dr. Humphreys just used one?  Did he take one look at the charming Fotis Dulos and say why bother and then spent the rest of the 20 hours having nice chats?  Isn't that typical of how narcissists hoodwink not only mental health professionals and court personnel as well?  I'd say it is pretty classic.  

Were there any other indications that Fotis Dulos was capable of murder? For one thing, just before the divorce he purchased an unregistered gun in Florida without a permit.  Jennifer brought this to the Court's attention in one of her filings.  In it she wrote, "I am fearful of my and my children's safety, especially because he has a handgun in the house."  And further she stated, "I asked my husband to immediately remove the gun from the house, and he insisted that he was keeping the gun for protection."  Once the divorce was filed, Fotis Dulos turned the gun over to the Farmington police and subsequently never picked it back up because he didn't have a permit for it.  You have to wonder why he was running around with a gun just before the divorce.

In another incident Jennifer reported that Fotis Dulos threatened to run her over with a car.  These kinds of incidents are hard to prove because without a witness, they are he said, she said.  However, if that actually happened, it would have far worse implications than in most situations. This is because, in September 2010, Jennifer's mother-in-law was accidentally actually struck and killed by a car the nanny was driving in the driveway of the family home.  It's striking that this kind of scenario rose again within the context of the divorce.  In fact, knowing what we know now, it takes on an ominous tone.

Otherwise, in reading the Courant, I can't say there was anything else that indicated what Fotis Dulos was capable of.  I do think one incident alerts me to the fact that Fotis Dulos was a total jerk. Specifically, at one point, Fotis had all his kids baptized as Christians against Jennifer's wishes.  This is particularly offensive since Jennifer was Jewish and by Jewish law, since it goes by the matriarchal line, the children were also considered Jewish.  In addition, before Hilliard Farber died, Fotis Dulos told his father-in-law that if he didn't keep giving money to him, Fotis would take the kids to Greece and never come back. This is the "congenial" guy which Dr. Humphreys was talking about.  

The record shows that Jennifer Farber-Dulos absolutely outgunned Fotis Dulos financially.  She clearly felt the need to defend herself to the fullest extent she was capable.  While he spent $45,000 in a year on the divorce, sometimes filing his own motions, she spent $69,000 per month.  She had enough clout to get the Court to limit Fotis' access to the children and require that he have supervised visitation.  How?  She pointed out that he had allowed the kids to have contact with his mistress, Michelle Troconis, against Court orders, and then told the kids to lie about it.  For the rest of us who don't have that kind of money and status to help deal with our abusers, no way could we cut off our kid's other parent by making claims like that.  Ordinarily, the Court couldn't care less. We are told we should just move on and get over it. In my case, for six years my ex refused to adhere to medical guidelines for my disabled children's care and the Court didn't do anything about it.  

With all the Court processes, Fotis Dulos was staring financial ruin right in the face. This makes me question what Jennifer Dulos' attorneys were doing.  I mean, you may have the ability to grind someone down, but is it wise under the circumstances to do so.  Was it at all possible to arrive at a financial agreement which would have allowed Fotis Dulos to transition his business to a state of independence from his former in-laws without bankrupting him?  Was all out assault necessary?  

When it comes to custody, I was really struck by how clueless both Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis were.  Michelle made the comment at one point during the custody battle that she would love to get together with Jennifer and chat over a cup of coffee.  Was she kidding?  Then there was Fotis peculiar idea that he could have himself, Michelle and her daughter, plus Jennifer and the five kids all living together in the same house.  He thought his kids would make friends with Michelle's daughter and ultimately go to the same school together.  That is so pie in the sky only a totally insensitive fool would think of it.  But apparently, Fotis had concrete plans for that scenario.  This is where Jennifer's kids arrived at the conclusion that Michelle was trying to erase Jennifer and take her place which, to be honest, seems entirely plausible.  

If Jennifer felt she was going to lose her primary role as mother in the lives of her children, no wonder she fought with such vigor.  However, this is not a situation new to family court.  This is why Court orders are regularly put into place stating that romantic partners must be kept separate from the children.  If people violate those orders, they can be warned, held in contempt of Court, fined, or lose privileges in many ways.  However denying the offending parent access to the children or putting them on supervised visitation for that kind of offense is rather excessive. It might have made sense for Fotis' sessions with Dr. Stephen Humphrey to include some discussions about arriving at more realistic expectations for custody post divorce.  But it seems like the attorneys, GALs, and custody evaluators were more interested in keeping the conflict going instead of arriving at common sense solutions.

Bottom line, divorce is a vulnerable and unstable time for most people.  It is not the time for extreme accusations or extreme custody orders--at least not without a solid basis. It is not an opportunity to drive people into bankruptcy or for calling parents crazy.  Why try to push people over the edge? But if the legal team involved in the Farber-Dulos case were going to act so unwisely, thank God for the supervised visitation with the children. If Fotis Dulos was willing to kill Jennifer in cold blood, had he not been restricted by supervised visitation, what might he have done to the children?  It is chilling to speculate.

Justice for Jennifer would have meant that the judicial system and the legal professionals involved handled the Dulos divorce with wisdom and common sense.  Instead, they used it as an opportunity to churn the case and seize as much money as possible from both Jennifer and Fotis.  I suspect that the attorneys in the case were poised to carry out a custody switch from Jennifer to Fotis Dulos prior to her death.  This is why Fotis was cleared of any mental health pathology while the custody evaluator, Dr. Steven Herman, labeled Jennifer with a serious mental health condition which she could not possibly have had.  There were massive sums of money involved, and the kids came along with multi-million dollar trust funds. 

If we were truly invested in Justice for Jennifer, this kind of nonsense would stop.  The judicial branch and family court professionals would open themselves up for scrutiny and self criticism, and put a halt to the greed and corruption which has dominated the system for so long. It would end the news media blackout and allow newspapers and broadcast journalism to report on the judicial system fairly and honestly. Jennifer paid the ultimate price as a result of the CT Family Court's miserable failures.  It is about time that the State of CT did something about it.

MICHELLE TROCONIS: THE FIGHT OVER THE CUSTODY REPORT!

On Friday, March 1, 2024, Michelle Troconis was found guilty of all the six counts she was charged with, i.e. conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and one count of second-degree hindering prosecution.  The basis for the conviction was grounded in DNA evidence from the trash bags Fotis Dulos dropped off along Albany Avenue in Hartford while Michelle was in the car.  It also came from interviews Michelle participated in with police at different times.  There was other evidence, but my point is that very little evidence arose from the Dulos custody report.  Very little evidence came in from assessments as to whether the victim, Jennifer Dulos, was or was not a nice person.  Certainly, the whole "Gone Girl" concept never made it to the stand and so pursuing that line of thought was a waste of time.  Why then did Attorney Jon Schoenhorn spend so much of his time (and by reference his client's money) pursuing the custody report and associated hearing transcript which added nothing to Michelle Troconis' defense? I think that's where thoughts of skullduggery in the judicial system arise, which Michelle was indirectly hinting at by posting articles on the disgraced medical examiner, Henry Lee. My primary question, talking about skullduggery, is why didn't Attorney Schoenhorn simply tell Michelle that the custody report and hearing transcript were irrelevant? After all, what could possibly be in the Dulos custody report which could exonerate Michelle?  Logically, nothing.

It is with this question in mind that I will now examine the issue of the Dulos custody report because it tells you a lot about how the legal system works, or doesn't work, depending upon your viewpoint. Here it is important to note that there are two forms of evidence that Michelle Troconis and her attorney were attempting to access.  First, there was the custody report itself.  Second, there was the transcript of the hearings where Dr. Stephen Herman provided testimony in regard to his custody report.  The custody report doesn't in itself provide complete information.  It is only when it is combined with the Court testimony of its author that legal professionals can fully understand the implications of the report and how it will impact future custody decisions.  When the author of the report is on the stand, attorneys for both the plaintiff and the defendant have the opportunity to challenge the content and hold it up for scrutiny.  

When we hear of the legal controversy over this issue related to Michelle's criminal trial, it is important to note that Michelle and her legal team obtained the custody report quite promptly.  Attorney Jon Schoenhorn requested a copy of the custody report in March 2021 and received a copy of it a month later in April 2021.  Where the controversy arose was in his attempt to obtain copies of the transcript of the hearing on the report which took place on March 14-15, 2019.  This is where Attorney Jon Schoenhorn faced one obstruction after the other, some of them, interestingly enough, of his own making.  Why?  Was he doing that deliberately?

The sequence of events is as follows.  In March 2021, Attorney Jon Schoenhorn asked the court clerk for a copy of the transcript of the hearings in regard to the custody report. In response, the clerk said no because it was sealed from the public. To verify that point, Attorney Schoenhorn went through the case file and was unable to find the Judge's sealing order.  He pointed that out and again asked for a copy of the transcript.  This is when the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut decided to intervene.  This is quite puzzling.  Why would such a high ranking official immediately become involved in a matter like this?  In my case, I had ten legal documents disappear, not just one, and that situation was simply handled by one of the judges in my case.  The fact that William Tong immediately jumped to attention and investigated the missing sealing order right away is quite striking.  It tells you how much attention Michelle's conspiracy trial was accorded all the way through the judicial system right to the top.

I also want to take some time out to make a point that has been on my mind for a long time related to Attorney General William Tong.  Beginning in 2013, dozens of family court litigants made their way to the judiciary committee of the CT State Legislature and presented testimony regarding the corruption, exploitation, and dysfunction they experienced in the CT Family Court system.  In response, they were mocked, disrespected, and generally disbelieved and treated as though they were crazy.  

In 2018, during William Tong's tenure as Chair of the Judiciary Committee, he presided over hearings where he was particularly rude, disrespectful and uncaring of the family court victims who came to provide testimony of the tragic and horrific experiences they'd had in family court.  In particular, Tong demanded that people who gave testimony remove T-shirts they were wearing which expressed their views, a demand for which he had absolutely no legal basis.  In fact, it violated their first amendment rights to freedom of speech. I can't help thinking that if the Judiciary Committee had exercised a modicum of wisdom in respecting the effort it took for these advocates to come to the State Capital and speak up about the legal abuses of family court, if they had only taken that testimony seriously and passed essential reforms at that time, Jennifer Dulos might still be alive today.  Instead, ironically, we have the infamous William Tong, who I believe gained his current position as Attorney General by frustrating the hopes of family court reform advocates, intervening in the details of the prosecution of Michelle Troconis.  It is interesting how everything intersects.  

Anyway, getting back to the main point, Attorney General William Tong investigated the missing sealing order.  He found that there was a public sealing order, but due to clerical error it wasn't properly posted in the case file.  He also stated that due to clerical error, the entire transcript of the hearing that day was sealed including the discussion about closing the courtroom and sealing Dr. Herman's testimony.  In fact, the only part of the transcript that should have been sealed was Dr. Herman's testimony, not the hearing on the motion to seal Dr. Herman's testimony.  That's quite a bit of clerical error.  Just like the ten documents which disappeared from my file was the result of clerical error.  What the clerical error in the Dulos case was hiding is that the courtroom was closed illegally during Dr. Herman's testimony and the transcript of the hearing was also sealed illegally.  What a convenient clerical error.  In this case, and in my own case of the missing ten documents, like Michelle, you start to think maybe there is some skullduggery involved here.

So how was the court closed and the transcript sealed illegally.  Apparently, if you wish to close the courtroom and seal a transcript, you are required to provide a 14 day public notice in advance and provide a record of a compelling reason to override the public interest in judicial transparency.  This was not done.  Presiding Judge Donna Nelson-Heller simply ignored the legal requirements and did what she wanted to do because she had the power and she could.  Now, I will acknowledge that it is standard to seal custody reports and the court transcripts of testimony by the authors of those reports.  In fact, the custody report in my case was sealed and I was glad that it was.  Who wants all that private information, much of it detailed mental health evaluations, not only of the parents but also the children, available to the public.  Of course, no one wants that.  

On the other hand, the law is the law, and it is intended to be obeyed.  There are proper steps that are supposed to be taken according to state statute if you intend to seal information from the public.  They were crafted as a consequence of lengthy negotiations with the media and private citizens after considerable abuses related to the issue. Yet this cavalier disregard for legal requirements is typical of family court judges.  They simply do whatever they want to do regardless of the law, regardless of case law, and regardless of the CT Practice Book which is supposed to guide their actions and their decisions.  The failure of judges to obey the law is what has undermined the public trust in the legal system and led to the family court reform protests of 2013-2018.

In an attempt to access these court transcripts, Attorney Jon Schoenhorn submitted motions to two other Superior Court judges asking them to overturn Judge Nelson-Heller's sealing order.  But again, why?  Of what possible value could the transcripts be when it came to Michelle's defense?  Help me here, because I seriously have no idea.  Both of these Superior Court Judges denied Attorney Schoenhorn's motions based upon Valvo v. Freedom of Information Commission which declared it illegal for one Superior Court judge to overturn another Superior Court judge's decisions.  I have to say even I knew that.  How is it that Attorney Schoenhorn didn't know?  Can he honestly say he was ignorant of this fundamental legal insight?  I find that hard to believe.  What was he doing?  Putting on a big act for Michelle instead of just telling her this transcript won't help you in the least?  

Next, Attorney Schoenhorn took his request to the Supreme Court and again asked for access to the transcripts.  In response, the Supreme Court asked why Attorney Schoenhorn didn't simply go to criminal court with his request.  Exactly!  Why didn't he?  The end result is Michelle Troconis wasted her time during her criminal trial looking at a custody report, and putting herself at risk of a contempt, for a document that really didn't have much of an impact when it came to convincing the jury of her innocence. Then to top it off, Attorney Schoenhorn made a song and dance about the transcripts regarding the custody report, pretending he was making serious efforts to obtain copies when he was really making deliberate and obvious legal mistakes and, wasting everyone's time, and doing it in such a way that everyone knew it, even non-attorneys like me.