Michelle Troconis
The lead defendant in the disappearance and presumed murder of Connecticut woman Jennifer Farber Dulos is dead, but that is not stopping prosecutors from pursing his alleged co-conspirators. They filed new charges on Friday against Michelle Troconis, the ex-girlfriend of late alleged killer Fotis Dulos.
These charges are second-degree hindering prosecution, tampering with physical evidence, and conspiracy to commit tampering with physical evidence, according to NBC Connecticut.
Prosecutors have said Troconis helped then-boyfriend Fotis Dulos discard evidence in the murder of his estranged wife Jennifer Dulos, who went missing from her New Canaan home on May 24, 2019. She also helped him with his alibi, authorities said.
These new charges follow the release of surveillance footage showing defendant Dulos making multiple stops in Hartford to throw away alleged evidence of his wife’s bloody death. Troconis was in the vehicle, authorities say. Her defense attorney Jon Schoenhorn argues that the footage depicts her as just a bystander, and not a participant. In short, goes the defense argument: Troconis is innocent. Schoenhorn tried to get the court to ease up on his client’s bond conditions.
JUST IN: Michelle Troconis, her attorney, and family have arrived at Stamford Superior Court for today’s hearing in the Jennifer Dulos case, her first since February due to the pandemic. Today, her attorney will argue to relax the conditions of her bond release. @News12CT pic.twitter.com/t8X6L9zoJM
— Marissa Alter (@MarissaAlter) August 28, 2020
Like Troconis, Kent Mawhinney, an attorney, was charged with conspiracy in the murder case against his friend Fotis Dulos. He pleaded not guilty.
Troconis has basically disowned her late boyfriend, who died by suicide in January while maintaining his innocence.
“Whether or not Fotis Dulos was capable of doing the things the police and prosecutors accused him of doing, I do not know,” she said in a statement translated by her defense and obtained by NBC Connecticut. “But based on what I have learned in the last year, I think it was a mistake to have trusted him.”
[Image via Law&Crime Network/Pool]
