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STAMFORD, CT (WFSB) — The estranged husband of a missing mother spoke out for the first time Wednesday morning following a custody hearing.
The attorney for Fotis Dulos filed paperwork in court on Tuesday, stating he intends to seek custody of his five children.
A hearing was held Wednesday morning in Stamford, where a judge ordered all copies of a custody report to be sealed, for the children’s best interest.
Jennifer Dulos disappeared on May 24. She last was last seen dropping the children off at school.
The five children have been staying with their maternal grandmother ever since.
Fotis Dulos and Jennifer Dulos were involved in a lengthy divorce leading up to her disappearance, according to court documents.
After the custody hearing, Fotis Dulos made a brief statement saying “I just want to tell my children that they’re constantly on my mind and that I love them and I miss them very much.”
Leading up to the hearing, Fotis’ attorney, Norm Pattis, said he wanted documents believed to be a custody evaluation for Jennifer Dulos and the five children unsealed by the courts.
Pattis said they contain “material that tends to exonerate him [Fotis Dulos] of all crimes associated with the disappearance” of Jennifer Dulos.
Pattis had also requested Wednesday’s custody hearing be postponed to July 1 because he said he’d be out of state. That was denied.
The attorney for Jennifer Dulos said “the continuance is sought in bad faith as an attempt to delay a determination by this court that the defendant and his counsel have violated outstanding sealing orders.”
During the hearing on Wednesday, a judge ruled for those custody documents to be returned and sealed.
Also, neither attorneys are allowed to make comments on them.
The status conference was scheduled after the guardian for the Dulos children, Michael Meehan, expressed concerns about what Norm Pattis talked about publicly.
It was regarding confidential information in the custody case.
Pattis says he became aware of those documents on the day Dulos made bond.
An attorney for the defense council went to Dulos’ home to find his passport to surrender as part of the bond conditions. There the attorney found a custody report in plain view.
Pattis says he was not aware there was an order to not discuss any of those contents, so he revealed them. Pattis was not the original attorney for the custody case.
Jennifer’s attorney said Pattis shouldn’t have tried using the report as a criminal defense.
Attorneys for Jennifer Dulos filed a motion of contempt, claiming the court “impose sanctions for the willful violation of this court’s sealing orders.”
“We are pursuing numerous leads, you heard us say today in court comments that Jennifer made in to Mr. Dulos that give us grave concerns for her safety and well-being. We are actively contemplating a revenge suicide hypothesis as an explanation for her disappearance,” Pattis said on Wednesday.
Tuesday, Channel 3 learned that Fotis Dulos left Connecticut in spite of court orders specifying that he was to stay in state unless travel is approved by a judge. He was traveling in western Connecticut on a country road that twists and turns, sometimes crossing into New York.
The court was informed of it.
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