CT Supreme Court rebuffs Troconis’ attempt to gain transcript of secret custody fight in Dulos divorce

The Connecticut Supreme Court Monday rebuffed an attempt by Michelle Troconis to obtain a sealed transcript from a child custody hearing that she had hoped would include evidence supporting her defense against charges that she conspired in the murder and disappearance of Jennifer Farber Dulos.

Troconis wanted access to the transcript of a two-day custody hearing in the bitter divorce of Jennifer and Fotis Dulos. Jennifer Dulos disappeared and is presumed, based on blood stains and other evidence, to have been murdered a week after the May 2019 custody hearing, from which the presiding judge had improperly barred the public in Stamford Superior Court.

Fotis Dulos was charged with murder in January 2020, but died in a New York City hospital a month later after trying to kill himself in Farmington — in the home he shared with Troconis after his wife disappeared. Hartford lawyer Jon Schoenhorn sought the transcript and is defending Troconis, who is free on bond while waiting to be tried on charges that she conspired with Dulos to murder his wife and later tried to help him avoid arrest by concealing evidence.

Michelle Troconis tells CT Supreme Court she’s being wrongly denied secret court records

Schoenhorn was trying to get a Superior Court judge in Hartford to reverse the order by a judge in Stamford who sealed the custody transcript. But in a unanimous decision written by Justice Joan Alexander the court said the request is without merit because a judge cannot reverse a decision by another court with continuing jurisdiction over a matter.

To allow such “collateral” attacks on judicial rulings would create chaos in the administration of justice, the court said.

“It would wreak havoc on the judicial system to allow a trial court in an administrative appeal to second-guess the judgment of another trial court in a separate proceeding involving different parties, and possibly to render an inconsistent ruling,” the court said.

Such reversals could also leave the interests of parties to the original litigation unprotected – such as the five Dulos children who were subjects of the custody hearing.

“Of particular concern to this court was the fact that the interests of all of the affected parties may not be adequately protected in a collateral proceeding,” the court said.

Schoenhorn, the court said, should have sought to unseal the transcript in the court where it was issued.

Schoenhorn had argued to the Supreme Court that the public was barred from the Dulos hearing and the transcript was sealed based on an improper and — as a result, invalid — court order. He produced evidence showing that the order did not comply with stringent requirements judges must follow before closing courts to the public and sealing transcripts.

Schoenhorn wants a transcript of the custody hearing to look for anything that could help Troconis by revealing what may have precipitated Jennifer Dulos’ disappearance. The Dulos divorce case was closed and dismissed in 2020, after the parties were declared dead or presumed dead. A year later, in March 2021, Schoenhorn filed a transcript request with the court reporter who produced the transcript, who is an employee of the state Judicial Branch.

Schoenhorn was told he couldn’t have it because the file is sealed. When he couldn’t find a sealing order after searching the public file in the clerk’s office of the Superior Court in Stamford, he moved in Superior Court in Hartford for an order instructing the court reporter’s office to provide him with the transcript. It was later learned that the court order sealing the transcript had been inadvertently sealed.

The custody hearing was convened to take testimony from Dr. Stephen Herman, a child psychologist who attracted attention when, in another high profile custody case, he testified that the experts at Yale New Haven Hospital were wrong when they concluded Woody Allen had not molested his 7-year-old daughter, Dylan.

With Dulos dead, detectives believe the best hope of finding his wife’s remains lies with Troconis, who they suspect is withholding evidence. She is free on $2.1 million bond and accused, among other things, of accompanying Dulos to Hartford the night after the murder while he stuffed bags of bloody evidence into storm drains and garbage cans.

Troconis has pleaded not guilty to all charges and insists she had nothing to do with the murder or cover-up.

State police investigators believe Dulos drove from Farmington to New Canaan to kill his wife. Based on blood-stained car seats and other evidence collected through searches across the state, detectives believe Dulos may have cut the body of his estranged wife into pieces that have never been found. Later in the day, police believe he returned to Farmington where he met Troconis, who allegedly helped dispose of evidence in storm drains and trash receptacles in Hartford.

Dulos was charged with murder in January 2020, but died in a New York City hospital a month later after trying to kill himself by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of the home he shared with Troconis. She is free on a $2.1 million bond while awaiting trial.