Defense attorney Norm Pattis said he is underwhelmed by evidence turned over by prosecutors so far in the Jennifer Dulos disappearance case.
“It was like waking up Christmas morning and getting an IOU,” Pattis said during an interview with WPLR’s Chaz and AJ.
“We still don’t have the evidence that they say they have, even,” he said.
In a motion to dismiss hindering prosecution and evidence tampering charges against Fotis Dulos, Pattis said prosecutors turned over discovery to him Monday consisting only of 26 CDs containing videos “purporting to show the defendant.”
According to arrest warrants, two people resembling Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, were seen stopping along a four-mile stretch of Albany Avenue in Hartford around the same time Jennifer Dulos was reported missing May 24.
Surveillance videos depict Fotis Dulos tossing garbage bags that were later found to contain his wife’s blood, according to arrest warrants.
Pattis, who said the defense team couldn’t open some of the videos and would need them copied again, said he wasn’t troubled by what he did see.
“I didn’t see him on an avenue discarding material in a clear video,” he said.
“In some instances, we saw grainy photographs of trucks that resembled his,” Pattis said. “We saw grainy evidence that did not even show license plate numbers, much less persons. I was sort of disappointed. I’m assuming that the state is acting in good faith and that they just didn’t give us everything they were supposed to. But what we’ve seen thus far gives us no problems at all.”
He was asked whether his motion to dismiss was a way of pushing for prosecutors to reveal more evidence.
“Yes,” he said. “Absolutely. I want it all.”
“I’m assuming they made a mistake and didn’t give us what they were supposed to give us,” he said. “We’re entitled to more than we got. We will get it.”
It was a strategy one of Pattis’ former colleagues saw coming. Brittany Paz, a defense attorney with Ruane Attorneys, said Pattis made an “interesting legal argument” in an effort to obtain more discovery evidence.
“The problem is that this is an ongoing investigation and so discovery has been sparse,” Paz said.
The discovery did not include any DNA evidence, Pattis said, nor anything related to Jennifer Dulos’ home where police said they found blood spatter and blood stains as well as evidence that she was the victim of a “serious physical assault.”
The CDs did include video of Troconis at a store in Farmington around 10 a.m. May 24, Pattis said, indicating she could not have been in New Canaan when Jennifer Dulos went missing. Pattis has called for the charges to be dropped against Troconis, who he claims can provide an alibi for his client.
Pattis said he wasn’t sure how prosecutors or a judge would respond to the motion to dismiss the charges against his client.
“The court may decide to not entertain this motion seriously for some time at the state’s request,” he said. “We’re hoping the court says, ‘Look, there’s just not enough evidence to support the prosecution of Mr. Dulos for any crime at this point.’”
“We remain confident and we understand why the state looks at Mr. Dulos as a suspect,” Pattis said. “With the passage of every week, I think it becomes more difficult to sustain the suspicion in a responsible form. We think the state should either put up or shut up.”