Just when you thought it was safe to walk into Connecticut Family Court, a mother goes missing! The sleepy rich towns of New Canaan and Farmington are abuzz with the news that Jennifer Farber Dulos, mother of five, plaintiff in divorce case Dulos v Dulos, against hubby Fotis is missing! Local and State Police along with highly trained four-legged, furry sniffing machines are scouring Waveny Park in search of mother’s body. Connecticut Family Court antics have reached new levels of drama. Netflix Originals will be scoping family court cases for a new series!!
Quick recap of the divorce case reveals that Jennifer and Fotis had money, lots of money. Can’t have drama and conflict without money, as Connecticut Family Court runs on money!!! Jen files for divorce in June 2017, but after two years, over five-hundred docket entries and eighty-five court orders, the couple is still married! Seventy orders have been issued by Judge Donna Heller over the last year. But it takes more than a judge to get parents of five gifts from god into a vicious fight over nothing. Time to look at the real players in this drama….the lawyers.
On both sides, there is a distinctive jewish smell of lawyers. In Dad’s corner there is Rose Kallor, LLP, which strangely enough does not advertise itself as holding practice in matrimonial law. The firm’s named partner Michael J. Rose represents dad, but lacks any obvious connection to the family court mafia and is an outsider to the closed family court community. Mom has (had) the firm Wayne D. Effron, PC, which advertises itself as Connecticut’s prominent matrimonial law firm, priding itself on being involved in the state’s most lucrative, richest and confrontational divorce cases. They hold a specialty in finding ‘hidden assets’ of high net worth individuals. The lawyer involved here is the notorious, the infamous, the nasty, evil, disgusting and mostly obese Reuben S. Midler. This old, ugly, dirtball, legal lizard was Nancy Tauck’s lawyer in the record setting case of Tauck v Tauck, which had 86 days of trial before the dirty Judge Holly Abery-Wetstone, with legal fees north of $13M. Starting to smell like an orchestrated jewish style fleecing of the Dulos family, with Judge Heller being the ring master. Connecticut attorneys know how to drag out a divorce proceeding, if there is money. This case was expertly dragged out and the parties bank accounts bled severely.
Let’s have a quick review of the he said, she said allegations….boring. He said, she said she would have him killed. She said, he said, he would have her killed. The kids were dragged into it. Daddy was banging Argentinian love interest on the side. She wanted out of Farmington ghetto, prefered upscale New Canaan. He was born Turkish but grew up in Greece. She was from New York. He was applying for Greek passports for the kids. They have five kids. He has a background in finance, economics from Brown and a Columbia MBA, finance, but runs a private high end residential construction business named the Fore Group, building McMansions for really rich people. He was not so rich, he borrowed millions from Jen’s dad, the late Hilliard Farber to bankroll his game of building huge houses on spec and flipping properties. The estate of Hilliard Farber is suing him for repayment. See suit Farber v Dulos. The business had negative cash flow and is saddled with inventory. The mansion ‘home’ at 4 Jefferson Crossing in Farmington was built with ‘rents funding, backed by grandma’s collateral on a bank loan, but did not sell and Fotis can’t make the payments, so it is being foreclosed. Business is over $2m underwater. Client list is pretty spotty. Money is tight, Fotis only claims to make $50k a year, the business is imploding on debt. Starting to wonder if mom is worth more dead than alive?
So what went wrong? Who gave the order to knock off mom? Not the lawyers, they were making too much money. Not the judge, she was taking kickbacks under the bench from the GAL. Not the GAL, he was making easy money. Michael Meehan is an inside agitator, who keeps up the conflict by bringing in the kids as weapons. GAL’s like Meehan serve with immunity, so they are untouchable and he knows it. So what happened? Look at daddy’s problem with filling out the financial affidavit. He was balking, claiming he did not know what he was worth or what his business was worth, which translates to there was money being laundered through this high end, high margin McMansion construction business and it was not Dad’s money. CPA Joe Urbanski of Farmington is a subpoena’d guest witness in the case. Attorney Midler pushed for access to the company books, a move that cost him his client. Easier to knock off mom rather than let the forensic accountants devour the cooked books and identify the off-shore source of dirty money. It was all about money for the lawyers and the judge. They pushed too hard and got too close to something dangerous. Suddenly the divorce was irrelevant and Mr. Dulos became a widower, who no longer needs to fight for custody of five kids. In Connecticut, no one can hear the children scream.
Here are the latest media articles about the situation. Stamford Advocate, Hartford Courant , New Canaan Patch , Stamford Advocate 2 , Hartford Courant 2. Good read is Tom Cleary’s article in Heavy. Best up to date coverage is by Michael Dinan on the NewCanaanite. Interesting reads by Larry Noodles here, here and here. Saddest part is that the police think there is a body to find. Fueling conflict and the intentional destruction of families is the hallmark of Connecticut Family Court!!! Sorry that Petros, Theodore, Christiane, Constantine and Cleopatra Noelle all lost their mother, but such is family court; a tragedy.
The dead giveaway was delivered by Attorney Rose in a letter to the court on Wednesday which demanded return of the kids to the father, since mom is ‘missing’. Ooops, played that card too soon and showed Fotis’ hand. Lawyers!! Needless to say, mom has a large (~$10M) trust fund that provides $400k a year in income. The kids inherit the fund and then sole custodial widower dad owns the trust funds. Motive!!!
Editor’s Note: The police know more than they are saying. Where is Jen’s cell phone? Last position? Last txt? C’mon, Keystone Cops can figure this out.
