‘I am indigent:’ Michelle Troconis files for public defender citing lack of money for appeals

Michelle Troconis has filed for a public defender and a waiving of court fees and costs as she prepares to appeal her conviction.

Troconis, 49, was convicted in March of conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence, conspiring to tamper with evidence and hindering the prosecution in connection with the death and disappearance of New Canaan mother and writer Jennifer Farber Dulos in 2019. The trial spanned several weeks in Stamford Superior Court.

On May 31, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison, suspended after 14 1/2 years, followed by five years of probation. Judge Kevin A. Randolph dismissed one charge of conspiracy to tamper with evidence, due to double jeopardy concerns.

Troconis’ defense team, including attorneys Jon Schoenhorn and Audrey Felsen, have announced plans to appeal her conviction.

In court filings, Troconis has applied for a waiver of fees, costs and expenses and an appointment of a public defender in her appeal, stating on record that she cannot afford a lawyer for her appeal.

Court documents obtained by the Hartford Courant state “I cannot pay the fees, costs and expenses of an appeal (I am indigent), and I cannot afford to hire an attorney.”

The application was filed June 25, records show.

Troconis’ cased spanned multiple years and she was sentenced five years after Farber Dulos — the estranged wife of her former boyfriend Fotis Dulos — disappeared after dropping her children off in New Canaan.

Troconis was convicted of plotting with Dulos, who was entangled in a divorce and custody battle with Farber Dulos, to kill the mother of five.

Prosecutors allege that Troconis then helped Dulos cover up the crimes.

Farber Dulos’ body has never been found but she has been declared legally dead.

Troconis’ attorneys previously filed a motion for a new trial, siting multiple “grounds for setting aside the jury verdict.”

The list includes concerns with the prosecutors’ closing arguments, which Troconis and her team argued “caused the trial to be so infected with unfairness as to constitute due process violation” and repeated “unfair” assertions that Troconis “lied” to police.

The motion also lists an improper appeal to emotion and prejudice by the jury when prosecutors stated in court “that the case was ‘about’ the Dulos children” while the five children were sitting in the courtroom.

The multi-page motion goes on to include the court’s denial of motions to bar evidence of presumptive blood detection tests to be introduced to the jury and the limiting of the defense attorney’s cross examination of certain witnesses as reasons for vacating the conviction.

Troconis is currently incarcerated at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic.