© Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant via AP, Pool, File/Hartford Courant/TNS FILE - In this Dec. 4, 2019, file photo, Fotis Dulos, charged with murdering his estranged and missing wife, is questioned during testimony in a civil case at Hartford Superior Court in Hartford, Conn. A dispatcher from the Farmington police said, on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, officers had responded to Dulos' home and he was later transported to the hospital.

The death of Fotis Dulos has not stopped the fight for child support for his five children.

Gloria Farber, the mother of Dulos’ estranged wife, Jennifer Farber Dulos, is seeking $4,400 a month from Dulos’ estate to help pay for the cost of caring for her grandchildren, according to records in probate court. Farber has custody of her grandchildren now that Dulos is dead and her daughter is presumed dead.

But Farber’s request may be moot.

A preliminary inventory filed this week by Christopher Hug, the temporary administrator of Fotis Dulos’ estate, showed that Dulos had $272 in two separate bank accounts and that Fore Group Inc., Dulos’ home building company, has a balance of zero. Hug said Fore Group owns several properties, including the Farmington mansion where Dulos tried to kill himself in January, but all of them carry significant debt.

“It is anticipated that the estate may be insolvent,” Hug said.

Hug came across a mystery in investigating Dulos’ finances — an empty safety deposit box at the local People’s Bank that was apparently jointly owned with another person.

The box is empty, and Hug is seeking permission from the probate court to subpoena bank records to see who the co-owner is and who last accessed it. Hug is not only looking for potential assets of the estate, but he also is trying to determine if Dulos left a copy of his will in the box. Hug said he has been unable to locate a will.

Dulos died in a New York City hospital on Jan. 30, two days after he tried to kill himself by carbon monoxide poisoning. Farmington police doing a wellness check at his home pulled Dulos out of a running car in his garage and tried to resuscitate him. A preliminary death certificate filed with the probate court indicates that the cause and manner of death are still pending.

The death certificate lists Farber Dulos as his surviving spouse and her whereabouts as “unknown.”

Dulos, 52, was facing murder charges in connection with the May 24 disappearance of Farber Dulos. She was last seen dropping the couple’s five children off at their New Canaan private school. Surveillance video showed her returning to her home on Welles Lane in New Canaan shortly after 8 a.m.

Police said in court records that Dulos was “lying in wait” for her at the house, attacked her when she returned and killed her in the garage. Police said Dulos cleaned up the crime scene and then fled the home with Farber Dulos’ body. Dulos had denied any role in her disappearance.

The couple’s five children, who ranged in age from 8 to 13 when their mother vanished, have been living with Farber in her New York City apartment since their mother disappeared.

In her petition for child support, Farber is seeking an allowance of $4,400 a month to assist in caring for the children. Hug has not responded to the request, which will be presented to Farmington Probate Judge Evelyn Daly.

There is some money available to the estate because Dulos didn’t list a beneficiary of his Fidelity IRA, which has about $195,000 in it. An IRA would not normally be part of someone’s probate case, but because there is no beneficiary, it becomes an asset of the estate.

But the Dulos children aren’t likely to see much, if any, of that because Hug has asked the court for permission to use the IRA funds to maintain the Fore Group properties until they can be sold and to pay his fees, as well as any legal fees for fighting foreclosures of several homes.

Hug is proposing to “loan” Fore Group Inc. $25,000 and make him the new CEO of the company in order to determine whether selling the assets will eventually yield any funds for the estate.

Hug listed at least six houses or vacant properties that Fore Group owns, and all of them are either already in foreclosure or about to be. Those properties include:

61 Sturbridge Hill Road in New Canaan, which is appraised at $3,846,600 but has a mortgage of $2.79 million and other debt totaling $1.2 million. The Savings Bank of Danbury has filed a foreclosure notice.

80 Mountain Spring Road in Farmington, which is appraised at $1.28 million but has mortgages totaling $1.73 million.

585 Deercliffe Road in Avon, which is appraised at $666,125 and has a principal mortgage of about $1.3 million. There is a dilapidated home on the property, and Dulos planned to tear it down and build a new high-end home with a view of the Farmington Valley, but the project never commenced.

4 Jefferson Crossing in Farmington, which is currently in foreclosure and is also the subject of a civil lawsuit by Farber against Dulos. Farber has set up a trust that has been paying the mortgage and taxes on the property for several months.

Two vacant lots at 84 and 88 Mountain Spring Road appraised at $231,137 and $228,337 respectively. Hug said he expects People’s Bank to be filing foreclosure notices on all three Mountain Spring Road properties soon.

Hug said with the $25,000, he can ensure that all of the properties are properly insured, maintain them so the don’t depreciate more in value, defend the company’s interests in foreclosure proceedings and prepare them for sale.

Hug said that he is not seeking any specific orders from the court regarding any criminal matters.

The state earlier this week dropped the murder charges against Dulos, but his attorney, Norm Pattis, wants to keep the criminal case alive. Pattis has asked Superior Court Judge Gary White to substitute the estate of Dulos as the defendant, a request that was denied this week. Pattis has said he’d like to appeal White’s ruling to the state Supreme Court but to do so, he would need permission from the estate.

Dulos’ former girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, and his friend, attorney Kent Mawhinney, are both charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Police said they helped Dulos try to cover up the killing.

———

©2020 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)

Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.