Michelle Troconis convicted of helping boyfriend cover up murder of mom of five Jennifer Dulos
Venezuelan socialite Michelle Troconis broke down in tears Friday morning as she was found guilty of helping her now-deceased boyfriend cover up the 2019 murder of his estranged wife, Connecticut mom of five Jennifer Dulos.
The jury convicted Troconis – who was caught on video riding around with lover Fotis Dulos while he ditched bags of Jennifer’s bloody clothes – of conspiracy to commit murder, evidence tampering and hindering prosecution.
The 50 year old put her head in her hands and crumpled onto the courtroom table, as her legal team struggled to comfort her after the verdict was read.
Members of Troconis’ family also broke down and wiped away tears during the proceedings, the Hartford Courant reported.
On the other side of the courtroom, police detectives who worked on the case shook hands while Jennifer Dulos’ friends closed their eyes and shed a few tears, the outlet added.
“Today’s verdict is a crucial attribution of accountability, not a victory. There can be no victory when five children are growing up without their mother,” a spokesperson for Jennifer Dulos’ family, Carrie Luft,?told the CT Post.
The family hopes the verdict might bring new leads in the search for Jennifer’s remains, which have never been found, she added.
“While it’s our hope that today’s verdict brings Jennifer’s family and friends some peace, we also hope that someday we can provide resolution to the still unanswered question of where Jennifer rests,” State’s Attorney Paul J. Ferencek said in a statement.
The six-person jury began deliberating Tuesday afternoon in Stamford, Connecticut.
Troconis had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
She now faces up to 50 years in prison, according to CT Insider.
Troconis was led away in handcuffs after the judge agreed to raise her bond from $2.6 to $6 million.
If she makes bond, Troconis will be held under house arrest with electronic monitoring until sentencing, which is set for May 31.
She was not allowed to say goodbye to her family before being taken away, the Courant reported.
The court clerk initially tried to schedule sentencing for May 24, but Troconis’ attorney argued that the date would be “inappropriate” given that Jennifer Dulos vanished on May 24, 2019.
Outside the courtroom, Jennifer Dulos’ friends embraced the family’s former nanny, Lauren Almeida, who testified at the trial, the Courant said.
Almeida also thanked investigators and hugged them.
The verdict came after a 27-day trial, during which jurors saw damning surveillance footage of Troconis in the passenger seat of Fotis Dulos’ flashy Ford F-51 Raptor while he drove up and down a main street in the hours after Jennifer is believed to have been killed, the Courant noted.
Troconis was present in the car while her lover moved and disposed of trash bags that were later discovered containing the victim’s blood-soaked clothes – including a bra that was shown in court.
Prosecutors claimed that Dulos – a luxury home builder originally from Greece – attacked his estranged wife at her New Canaan rental home and drove off with her body.
The couple, thick in a struggle over who would get custody of their five children in their divorce, were often at odds, prosecutors said.
Troconis, Dulos’ live-in girlfriend, was angry and fed up over the divorce case, and knew about his plans to kill his ex-wife and had helped him cover it up, the state argued.
“Jennifer is dead, and Fotis and Michelle Troconis intended that to happen,” Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Manning said. “They agreed to work together to make it happen, and unfortunately they were successful in making it happen. But they got caught. This trial is very simple. It’s about a conspiracy and a cover-up.”
Lauren Almeida also claimed to the court that the parents were initially “nice to each other,” but their relationship soured when Jennifer Dulos found out about her husband’s affair with Troconis in March 2017.
Police also testified that they found what appeared to be blood on the black Range Rover in the victim’s garage.
Meanwhile, Troconis has maintained her innocence, insisting she doesn’t know what happened to Jennifer Dulos and had no idea her boyfriend had done anything wrong when she watched him throw out black garbage bags filled with evidence.
Her defense team claimed that, when Dulos was dumping the bags, Troconis thought they were simply heading to Starbucks, according to the Courant.
“She did not know that Fotis Dulos planned to harm her,” Troconis’ attorney Jon Schoenhorn told the jury. “The state has made what I would suggest are unfounded and unfair assumptions and have speculated that Michelle Troconis had to know what was going on because she was romantically linked with Fotis, that she was somehow involved in this nefarious, murderous plot.
“But that’s not reality,” he added. “That’s more like one of these cable TV movies, scripted movies. It’s not based on the facts that you heard during this trial.”
Troconis did not testify during the nearly month-long trial.
Jennifer Dulos belonged to a wealthy New York family: Her father, Hilliard Farber, founded his own brokerage firm, and her aunt by marriage was the fashion designer Liz Claiborne.
Her body has never been found.
A medical examiner, however, reviewed the blood splattered in her garage and other evidence and said she could not have survived the attack. A judge officially declared Jennifer Dulos dead in October 2023.
Fotis Dulos died in a Bronx hospital on Jan. 30, days after he attempted to take his own life while out of jail on $6 million bail, and a day before he was scheduled to attend another bail hearing.
Police said he waited for Jennifer Dulos to return home after dropping their kids off at school and attacked her in the garage before cleaning up the scene and driving off with her body.
He had denied the charge and claimed he did not kill Jennifer Dulos in his suicide note left at his Farmington home.
The couple’s five children, who are now between 13 and 17, have been with Jennifer Dulos’ mother ever since her disappearance.
Troconis, who is also accused of placing sealed documents on her laptop during the trial for people to see, will have a contempt of court hearing on March 5.
A second defendant in the case, Fotis Dulos’ former lawyer Kent Mawhinney, is awaiting trial on a charge of murder conspiracy.
He has pleaded not guilty.
With Post wires
