Prosecutors can’t use evidence from Michelle Troconis’ seized phone in Jennifer Dulos trial, judge rules

Now Troconis’s attorney is arguing that other evidence prosecutors might want to present should also be off limits.

Troconis, the former girlfriend of Fotis Dulos, is accused of helping Dulos cover up the murder of Jennifer Dulos, Fotis’ estranged wife who disappeared in 2019. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and second-degree hindering prosecution.

Footage of Michelle Troconis being transported to the New Canaan Police Department following her arrest in 2019 was shown in court Tuesday as attorneys argued whether to suppress her subsequent interviews with police.

The video shows Troconis sitting in the front seat of a Connecticut State Police cruiser, often with her head in her hands or her head resting on the door, as a trooper and an investigator escort her from Farmington to Avon.

Troconis’s attorney, Jon Schoenhorn, argued that the estimated 76-mile trip from where she was arrested — which he called “blatantly unlawful” and against state law — was meant to intimidate his client into speaking with police.

“You know what this stuff is all about, right? It’s not a surprise we showed up. We would like for you to be back with your daughter, and we’d like for you to be back and able to take care of your daughter but in order for that to happen, you’re going to have to clarify some things for us,” Connecticut State Police Sgt. Robert Hazen is heard telling Troconis in the video. 

In response, Troconis mentions her lawyer at the time, Andrew Bowman, and tells Hazen that Bowman “wanted to talk to you guys.”

“Did you understand that to be an affirmative invocation of the fact that she had an attorney and wanted her attorney to do the talking?” Shoenhorn asked Hazen as he sat on the witness stand Tuesday.

“Yes,” Hazen replied.

In the video, Hazen can be heard reminding Troconis multiple times that if she changed her mind and did want to talk with police, that she would have to revoke her right to an attorney.

“You have the opportunity to help clear the air on some things,” Hazen said in the video.

Schoenhorn said on Tuesday that Hazen’s constant reminders went against Troconis’s clear indication that she wanted her lawyer, and thus was a violation of her constitutional right to representation.

At one point in the video, which had shoddy audio quality, Troconis is heard telling Hazen that she “didn’t want to say something wrong.” Schoenhorn claims that this was a reference to the language barrier that he argues in his motion compromised her three interviews with police.

Police interviewed Troconis three times in June and in August after Jennifer Dulos had disappeared. Schoenhorn argued in his motion to suppress the interviews that English wasn’t her first language and a Spanish interpreter, which has been present with her throughout other hearings, was not provided at the time of the interrogation. 

Video recordings of the three interviews are expected to be played during hearings held over the course of this week.

Troconis is one of two remaining defendants facing charges in the death and disappearance of Dulos, a New Canaan mother of five who vanished in May 2019. Police have said they believe her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, killed her and disposed of her body. 

Troconis was dating Fotis Dulos and living in his Farmington home at the time of the disappearance. On the night Jennifer Dulos vanished, video surveillance footage captured Troconis sitting in the front seat of Fotis Dulos’ pickup truck as he dumped bags later found to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood and DNA, according to their arrest warrants.

Though Jennifer Dulos’ body has never been found, police and her family have presumed her dead. 

Fotis Dulos died by suicide in January 2020, three weeks after he was charged with murder. His former attorney and longtime friend Kent Mawhinney has pleaded not guilty to a conspiracy to commit murder charge. 

In a succinct seven-page ruling dated Tuesday, state Superior Court Senior Judge Kevin Randolph granted a motion filed by Troconis’ defense seeking to have the evidence police found on her phone suppressed. State police seized Troconis’ phone on May 31, 2019, during a search of Fotis Dulos’s 4 Jefferson Crossing home in Farmington.

The ruling is a win for the defense because it narrows the field of evidence the prosecutors will be able to present at trial. Schoenhorn, has filed a number of motions seeking to exclude a host of evidence; he has also sought to suppress evidence investigators obtained through a dump of data from an AT&T cellphone tower.

Prosecutors had argued during a hearing Monday that the search of the phone was permitted under the “exigent circumstances” exception established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Police must generally obtain a warrant in order to search a person’s home or belongings, including a suspect’s cellphone. But there are some exceptions: If police go to a person’s home to arrest them on a warrant, they may do a protective sweep of the dwelling; of if authorities have reason to believe a suspect will have time to destroy evidence if it’s not immediately seized by police. That was the argument advanced by prosecutors in regard to evidence seized from Troconis’ phone. 

Connecticut State Police Sgt. Mike Beauton Jr., one of the troopers involved in the seizure of Troconis’ phone, testified that police needed to seize it to prevent the owner from manipulating or deleting any potential evidence on it.

Earlier in the day the phone was seized, Beauton had observed surveillance camera footage from Albany Avenue in Hartford, which showed a woman believed at the time to be Troconis accompanying Fotis Dulos as he disposed of what police said was suspected evidence in the alleged crime. This, Manning said, created part of the basis for the exigent circumstances behind the seizure.

But Randolph noted in his ruling that law enforcement had applied for a warrant for Troconis’ phone records as early as May 27, four days before the search of 4 Jefferson Crossing.

“However, there was no warrant for the search and seizure of the defendant’s cell phone as late as May 31,” Randolph wrote in his decision. He concluded that the “exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement does not apply to the warrantless seizure of the defendant’s cell phone.”