HARTFORD, Conn. _ A Superior Court judge on Wednesday ordered Fotis Dulos, charged Tuesday with the murder of his estranged wife, held on $6 million bond.
Superior Court Judge John Blawie also issued a protective order barring Dulos from having contact with his five children and their current guardian, Gloria Farber, the mother of his estranged wife, Jennifer Farber Dulos.
Dulos' attorney, Norm Pattis, asked the judge to lower Dulos' bond to $1 million, saying the state is "groping in the dark and grasping at straws" with their case against him.
But prosecutors fought back, arguing to keep the high bond.
"The state believes he engineered and caused his wife's death," Stamford State's Attorney Richard Colangelo told the judge.
Dulos was arrested Tuesday at his Farmington home and charged with felony murder, murder and kidnapping. A $6 million bond was set and he spent the night at the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown.
Blawie on Wednesday agreed to lower the bond of Michelle Troconis, Dulos' former girlfriend, to $1.5 million after her attorney argued that she had never missed previous court appearances.
The judge also ordered Kent Mawhinney, Dulos' friend and a Bloomfield attorney, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, held on $2 million bond. Mawhinney, dressed in a long white T-shirt and tan-colored pants, did not speak during the brief hearing.
Prosecutors asked the judge to keep Mawhinney's bond at $2 million, saying he was a flight risk.
"Mawhinney, knowing about this warrant, did evade state police for a period of time yesterday and was found near the Massachusetts border," Colangelo told the judge. "
It's the third time Dulos has been arrested since Farber Dulos disappeared on May 24 after dropping the couple's five children off at their private school in New Canaan.
In a 35-page arrest warrant state police said they found Dulos' DNA on the inside handle of the doorknob to the mudroom of Farber Dulos' New Canaan home. Dulos had been at the home two nights earlier as part of a scheduled visitation with his children, but witnesses said he never entered the house that night.
Lauren Almeida, the children's nanny, told state police that she noticed the mudroom door was unlocked when she was getting the kids ready to leave for New York City. She described that as unusual because it was only open when the kids were out playing in the backyard.
Almeida also said when she first entered the house at 11:30 that day she noticed an unopened granola bar on the kitchen counter and that there were only two rolls of paper towels left in the pantry. She found that odd because just the day before she had put a 12-pack of paper towels there.
"I sat there and wondered what had happened last night that they used 10 rolls of towel rolls," Almeida said.
Almeida and another friend reported Dulos missing around 7 p.m. that night. About the same time that police were discovering blood splatters on a car, floor and wall inside the garage, Dulos can be seen on surveillance video dumping garbage bags into trash cans along Albany Avenue in Hartford.
Police later said they found Farber Dulos' DNA on 20 items recovered in Hartford, including zip ties with her blood on them in a garbage bag and a Vineyard Vines shirt she was wearing the day she disappeared.
They also found a garden glove with Dulos' DNA inside of it, his fingerprint on a piece of tape inside a bloody garbage bag and the DNA of both of them, plus Troconis' on the outside top of another garbage bag.
Troconis denied knowing what Dulos was throwing away on Albany Avenue saying she was on her phone with a friend and wasn't paying attention when they drove to a "creepy area," the affidavit says.
She told state police she asked him, "Why are we here? It doesn't make sense," Troconis said. "We've thrown garbage bags in other opportunities, but I've never been in that area."
Other evidence found included a black garden glove with Dulos' DNA on the interior, a black Husky glove with Farber Dulos' DNA on the outside of it, zip ties with Farber Dulos' DNA and at least one garbage bag with the DNA of Dulos, Farber Dulos and Dulos' girlfriend at the time, Michelle Troconis, the affidavit says.
They also found four zip ties with Jennifer Dulos' DNA on them, the affidavit says. Investigators believe Dulos used zip ties to bind Farber Dulos so that she couldn't escape.
The arrest warrant affidavit states, "There's little reason to zip tie a dead person, so it is reasonable that she was alive when she was bound by the ties and they were used to prevent her escape."
Investigators said that given the context of the situation, "it appears the zip ties were used to secure and incapacitate Jennifer Dulos for some time period, during which her blood and DNA transferred onto the ties."
