Fotis Dulos’ lawyer is asking a judge for access to his estranged wife’s medical records, which he says may support his theory that Jennifer Dulos staged her own disappearance to frame her husband.
Defense attorney Norm Pattis first floated the theory last month that Jennifer Dulos could have authored her own disappearance a la the novel “Gone Girl.”
During a court appearance days later, Pattis suggested that Jennifer Dulos might have perpetrated a “revenge suicide” plot.
His theories drew sharp rebukes from Jennifer Dulos’ family and friends and “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn.
In a motion mailed to the court Wednesday, Pattis asked a judge to review Jennifer Dulos’ medical records with a view to eventually using them in his defense.
Fotis Dulos, 51, and girlfriend Michelle Troconis, 44, have each pleaded not guilty to tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges in connection with the disappearance.
Jennifer Dulos was last seen around 8 a.m. May 24 after dropping off her five children at New Canaan Country School. After missing several doctors appointments in New York, she was reported missing around 7 p.m. that night. Police said they found blood spatter and signs that Jennifer Dulos was the victim of a “serious physical assault” in the garage of her Welles Lane home.
Police said surveillance videos show Fotis Dulos and Troconis making more than 30 stops in a four-mile stretch of Hartford’s Albany Avenue the night of the disappearance. According to arrest warrants, the videos also show Fotis Dulos dumping trash bags, which were later found to contain his estranged wife’s blood.
“Mr. Dulos denies any knowledge as to the whereabouts of Jennifer Dulos and as regards the circumstances surrounding her disappearance,” Pattis wrote in the motion.
Pattis said he’s acquired billing records indicating Jennifer Dulos had $14,000 worth of “tests, blood work, diagnostic treatment and ‘lab-reproductive’ coding for work done from February through April 2019.”
“The defendant seeks information about the diagnosis and treatment Ms. Dulos received in the weeks before her disappearance as such information may shed light on what may have motivated her to disappear,” Pattis’ motion says.
The motion noted the couple was engaged in a highly contentious divorce case and says Jennifer Dulos told her estranged husband “she would do anything she had to to make sure he did not get custody of their children.”
“The defendant seeks the medical records to evaluate whether Ms. Dulos, alarmed by her diagnosis and fearing that she might not be able to raise the children on her own, took steps to cause her own disappearance in such a way as to raise suspicions about Mr. Dulos,” Pattis wrote.
The lawyer said Fotis Dulos is entitled to review the records under the Sixth Amendment to prepare a defense in the hindering prosecution and evidence tampering case.
Troconis is scheduled to appear Thursday in Stamford Superior Court. Fotis Dulos’ next court date is Aug. 2.