Fotis Dulos, the estranged husband of missing woman Jennifer Dulos, is once again talking to the media and this time he is claiming his missing wife had psychological issues.
“I'm sorry to say it, but Jennifer was suffering from serious psychological problems that I didn't immediately understand and didn't want to go into further,” Dulos told Greek news site Proto Thema in a lengthy story about the case published Friday.
He said that the marriage began falling apart in 2010 when “Jennifer has gradually begun to take me out of her life and has become increasingly distant, a hermit. I tried hard to reach out and understand what was happening, but it never felt better.”
Jennifer Dulos has been missing since May 24 when she vanished in the midst of a contentious custody battle with her estranged husband over the couple’s five children. Jennifer filed for divorce from Fotis in 2017 and she expressed fear of her husband in court paperwork.
Fotis Dulos' recent interview comes after a Connecticut judge implemented a gag order that applies to all parties involved in the proceedings of the case.
Fotis Dulos’ attorney Norm Pattis claims that his client’s interview with the Greek outlet didn’t violate the gag order.
“There is no order barring all speech,” Pattis told The Stamford Advocate on Monday.
Additionally he told WTIC-TV in Hartford in a statement, “This isn’t even a close call. The comments were benign and discussed the history of a marriage. The order applies to comments about witnesses, victims, and trial participants. Jennifer is not a victim of any crime charged. She’s not a witness.”
While Pattis claims that the missing mother hasn’t been the victim of a crime, the most recent arrest warrant suggests otherwise. In the warrant written up for Dulos’ latest charge of evidence tampering, authorities claim he was "lying in wait" for his wife at her home on the day she disappeared and that the “crime and clean-up are believed to have occurred" soon after. Investigators believe Jennifer was the victim of a serious assault.
Fotis Dulos has recently pleaded not guilty to those most recent evidence tampering charges. His girlfriend Michelle Troconis has also been charged twice with evidence tampering. Authorities allege that both took part in cleaning up evidence related to the case. Fotis Dulos is due back in court on Friday and Troconis is supposed to be back in court on Oct. 10 to address those charges.
Before the gag issue was ordered last month, Dulos did several interviews with media outlets about his missing wife including one on NBC's "Dateline," which dedicated an hour to the contentious case last month. In that interview, just like in the Greek outlet, he claimed that he and his wife split amicably despite court documents filed by Jennifer stating she was scared of him.
“I am afraid of my husband,” she wrote in an affidavit tied to an order of custody filed in June 2017, according to the Stamford Advocate. “I know that filing for divorce and filing this motion will enrage him. I know he will retaliate by trying to harm me in some way.”
Over the past few months, Pattis has consistently hinted at a bizarre "Gone Girl" theory, claiming that Jennifer may have staged her own disappearance, a notion that Jennifer’s family and “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn alike have expressed disgust over. He has also made claims that Jennifer may have been ill before she vanished.