Michelle Troconis has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, suspended after 14.5 years, for helping her former boyfriend Fotis Dulos cover up the murder of Connecticut mother-of-five Jennifer Dulos.
“What Michelle Troconis decides to do today, tomorrow and the next day is up to her,” Judge Kevin Randolph said before he imposed the sentence on Friday. “From what the court has heard, she has a great deal to offer. The court has no control over what her decisions will be, her life is hers.”
The court heard emotional victim impact statements from Jennifer’s five children and several of her close friends.
“My mom was everything to me,” her son Petros Dulos, now 17, told the court. “I’ve been left with a hole inside of me I know I will never be able to fill.”
Troconis, 49, faced up to 45 years in prison after being found guilty in March of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit tampering with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and one count of hindering prosecution in the second degree.
Hours before the sentencing, Randolph vacated one of her charges of conspiracy to commit tampering with physical evidence, which could have led to an additional five years in prison.
The sentencing comes five years after her then-boyfriend’s estranged wife Jennifer Dulos disappeared on 24 May 2019 after dropping their children off at school in New Canaan, Connecticut.
While Jennifer’s body has never been found, she has been officially declared dead – with police finding that she died a violent death at the hands of Fotis, the man she had filed for divorce from just two years earlier.
Authorities believe Fotis killed Jennifer at her home after she dropped her children at school and then disposed of her body. In January 2020, Fotis died by suicide after being charged with Jennifer’s murder.
Troconis has long insisted that she did not know Fotis was doing anything nefarious as she watched him toss garbage bags into random bins, or as she helped him write up a timeline of their whereabouts on the day his estranged wife disappeared.
After heartbreaking victim statements from Jennifer Dulos’ children, friends and other family members in court on Friday, Troconis had a chance to speak.
“I am deeply saddened by this tragedy that has affected so many lives,” she sobbed as she looked over at Jennifer’s family and friends sitting in the courtroom.
“I found out things during the trial about a man I thought I knew and loved,” she continued.
“I deeply regret ever being in a relationship with Fotis Dulos and bringing my daughter, myself and my family into his life.”
Her lawyer, Jon Schoenhorn, said the prosecution did not prove any of their allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, including whether Fotis Dulos killed Jennifer Dulos or even if he was in New Canaan that morning.
“She did not know that Fotis Dulos planned to harm her,” Schoenhorn told the jury during the trial.
"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 said. “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.”
What started as a missing persons case turned into a massive search and investigation that captured media attention from around the world. Jennifer’s disappearance inspired numerous documentaries, a Lifetime movie “Gone Mom,” and a law that broadened the definition of domestic violence in Connecticut.
Jennifer was a member of a wealthy New York City family and a niece by marriage of fashion designer Liz Claiborne. Although her body has never been found, a medical examiner concluded suspected blood spatter in her garage and other evidence indicated she could not have survived. A state judge declared her officially dead in October.
Gloria Farber, Jennifer Dulos’s mother, told WTNH in a recent interview, that she believed Troconis “absolutely” lied to investigators and that she likely knows where her daughter is.
Yet, she does not believe Troconis will ever tell the family what happened to her body.
“I think she knows where Jennifer is,” Ms Farber said.
She told the outlet that she can still not believe what happened to her daughter.
“I don’t know what made him just absolutely go off the rails,” she continued.
Ms Farber now has custody of the couple’s five children, who live with her in New York City.
“I think about her every day. She poured all her wisdom and all her joy into her children,” she said.
“Her life was cut short, but she, in that short life, became a great person. She amazed me, she always amazed me.”
Troconis has been held on $6 million bond since her conviction. Her attorney has said she will appeal the convictions after sentencing.
Kent Mawhinney, a second defendant in the case, who was an attorney and a close friend to Fotis Dulos, is also charged with conspiracy to commit murder. His trial date has not yet been set.
Last Friday marked five years since Jennifer’s disappearance.
Carrie Luft, Jennifer’s friend who has also served as a spokesperson for her family, said the five-year anniversary was “not a milestone but a marker of cumulative loss and longing.”
“Life goes on, yet grief goes on alongside it, a shadow, a current, the presence of absence.”
