Kosta Diamantis: Bribery Verdict, Sentencing, and Medicaid Audit Case

Kosta Diamantis is a former Connecticut deputy budget director and state school construction chief who was convicted in October 2025 on 21 federal counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy, and lying to the FBI, and who faces a second federal trial in December 2026 on charges that he accepted $95,000 in bribes to help kill a state Medicaid audit of a Bristol optometrist.¹

Who He Was in State Government

Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis is a lawyer who served seven terms as a Democratic state representative from Farmington before joining the executive branch.² Under Governor Ned Lamont he held two overlapping jobs: director of the Office of School Construction Grants and Review, and deputy secretary at the Office of Policy and Management, later described as deputy budget director.³ In those roles he oversaw roughly $500 million a year in state reimbursements for local school building projects and had heavy influence over which contractors won work.⁴

Governor Lamont fired him as deputy budget director on October 28, 2021. The same day he retired from his classified state job while facing suspension, following an internal investigation into an arrangement involving his daughter’s employment in the Chief State’s Attorney’s office.⁵

The School Construction Bribery Scheme

Federal prosecutors charged that from 2018 through 2021, Diamantis ran a pay-to-play operation inside the school construction program, using his control over grants to steer contracts to firms that paid him and to threaten those that did not.⁶

Two companies were at the center of the case. Acranom Masonry, a Middlefield firm, made payments through its president Salvatore Monarca and vice president John Duffy. Prosecutors said Diamantis helped Acranom win work on the Weaver High School renovation in Hartford and the emergency rebuild of Birch Grove Primary School in Tolland, and threatened to remove the firm if payments stopped. Construction Advocacy Professionals, owned by Antonietta DiBenedetto Roy, paid Diamantis in cash and checks and hired his daughter Anastasia at an inflated salary to keep him satisfied.⁶

At trial the government put text messages in front of the jury. In one, Diamantis wrote: “Bottom line, have him give you 40 for Monday or he is out.”⁷ Duffy, his former brother-in-law, testified that “birthday card” was code for a bribe and “62.5 pints” meant a $62,500 payment from Monarca.⁸ Monarca identified $35,000 in payments, and another text showed Diamantis telling associates he “usually worked at 5 percent of total” contract value.¹⁰

All three contractors pleaded guilty before Diamantis was indicted and cooperated with the government. Monarca and Duffy each pleaded guilty on May 13, 2024, and Roy on May 14, 2024.⁶ A federal grand jury returned a sealed 22-count indictment against Diamantis on May 15, 2024. He was arrested at his Farmington home the next day, pleaded not guilty, and was released on $500,000 bail.¹¹

The Verdict and What He Faces

The trial began October 6, 2025, before U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill in Bridgeport. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan Francis and David Novick prosecuted; Norman Pattis represented Diamantis.¹²

Diamantis took the stand. He admitted receiving $70,000 from Acranom’s principals, calling it a “fee” for introducing them to executives at D’Amato Construction rather than a bribe. He acknowledged threatening to remove Acranom from projects if payments stopped, admitted his daughter had been hired by CAP, and cited personal financial pressures including child support, alimony, and tuition. He denied any role in his daughter’s hiring, saying Roy made that call herself.¹³ Pattis argued there was no quid pro quo and that Duffy was the one shaking down Diamantis, not the reverse. Prosecutors called the testimony a “confession.”¹⁴

Jurors began deliberating on Monday, October 20, 2025, and returned a verdict at 10:38 a.m. on Wednesday, October 22, finding Diamantis guilty on all 21 counts: two of extortion, two of bribery, four of conspiracy, and thirteen of making false statements to the FBI during 2023 interviews.¹⁵¹⁶ The statutory maximum across the counts exceeds 100 years, though prosecutors have said they expect a sentence in the range of 10 to 12 years.⁴

Sentencing Delay and Pardon Petition

Judge Underhill first set sentencing for January 14, 2026, then suspended that schedule on November 4, 2025, after Pattis argued the mandatory presentence interview could compromise his client’s Fifth Amendment rights in the second case.¹⁷ Sentencing has since been rescheduled to mid-September 2026, timed to leave space before the second trial.¹⁸

Federal records list a pending petition from Diamantis for a presidential pardon, labeled “Pardon after Completion of Sentence.” No public response from the White House has been reported.¹⁹

The Second Federal Case: A Killed Medicaid Audit

A separate federal indictment returned on February 25, 2025, charges Diamantis with 18 counts arising from a canceled Medicaid audit. The counts include extortion, bribery, conspiracy, seven counts of making false statements, and one count of filing a false 2020 federal tax return for failing to report $95,000 in payments.²⁰

Prosecutors say Bristol optometrist Helen Zervas fraudulently billed Connecticut’s Medicaid program more than 300 times between 2015 and 2020. When the Department of Social Services opened an audit of her practice, Family Eye Care, in January 2020, she turned to her fiancé, former Democratic state representative Christopher Ziogas, who allegedly acted as a middleman and funneled about $95,000 in bribes to Diamantis: $20,000 and $10,000 in March 2020, and $65,000 in May 2020.²¹²²

Prosecutors say Diamantis then pressured state officials, including DSS Commissioner Deidre Gifford, to drop the audit. In May 2020, Ziogas and Diamantis personally delivered a nearly $600,000 reimbursement check from Family Eye Care to DSS, and the audit was canceled, the only such cancellation over a five-year window.²² Internal DSS emails show the agency’s Medicaid audit director calling the arrangement “unusual” and noting a “provider has a friend in OPM.”²³ Gifford has not been charged, and Governor Lamont has defended her conduct.²⁴

Zervas pleaded guilty to health care fraud in February 2025 and faces 70 to 80 months in prison.²⁵ Ziogas pleaded guilty on November 26, 2025, to extortion, bribery, making false statements, and bank fraud; his plea agreement contemplates 70 to 87 months, and he is free on $500,000 bond. Both are expected to testify against Diamantis.²²

Diamantis pleaded not guilty on February 28, 2025. He considered and then rejected a plea deal at an April 2026 hearing, opting for trial.²⁶ Jury selection is set to begin December 4, 2026.¹⁸

Fallout Inside State Government

After firing Diamantis in October 2021, Lamont moved oversight of school construction from OPM back to the Department of Administrative Services and tightened bidding rules.²⁷ A 2022 state audit found “weak cost controls and excessive discretion” in the program and said routing audit results to Diamantis rather than his supervisors had created a “structural threat to audit independence.”²⁸ The General Assembly banned construction managers from bidding on subcontracts for projects they oversaw in 2022, then reversed that ban in 2024 through language inserted into a bond bill in the closing hours of the session.²⁹

Lamont, who was added to the defense witness list for the first trial, said after the verdict that “public service is a public trust” and that the outcome was “a stark reminder that when that trust is violated, there are consequences.”²⁷

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Seattle Times. Former Connecticut Budget Official Convicted of Taking Bribes From School Construction Contractors
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WSHU. CT Kosta Diamantis Trial Starts
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WSHU. Kosta Diamantis Arrested on Federal Charges
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CT News Junkie. CT Officials Pointing Fingers After Diamantis Corruption Conviction
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WSHU. Connecticut Seeks to Dismiss Kosta Diamantis Grievance Against Lamont Officials
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former State Official Indicted, Arrested in School Construction Extortion and Bribery Scheme
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CT Mirror. Kosta Diamantis Bribery Trial
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CT Public. Kosta Diamantis Trial Daughter Job
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CT Public. Kosta Diamantis Trial Begins CT
Roy testified that she paid Diamantis by check and once handed him $1,000 in cash at a Hartford coffee shop. She said he pressured her to hire his daughter at $45 an hour plus bonuses without interviewing anyone else, and that she feared being “blackballed from every job” if she refused. Prosecutors also alleged he tried to get contractors to cover his daughter’s $28,000 tuition at the Renbrook School, calling it a “fundraiser.”9CT Public. Kosta Diamantis Trial Daughter Job
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CT Public. Kosta Diamantis Arrested Federal Charges
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CT Mirror. Kosta Diamantis Trial Verdict
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CT Public. Kosta Diamantis Testifies Trial CT Bridgeport
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CT Mirror. Kosta Diamantis Trial Closing Arguments
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NBC Connecticut. Jury Deliberations Federal Trial Kosta Diamantis
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FBI. Former State Official Found Guilty of Extortion and Bribery Scheme
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CT Insider. Kosta Diamantis Corruption Trial Sentencing
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CT Mirror. Kosta Diamantis Second Trial Delayed, Sentencing on First Trial Set
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New Haven Register. CT Pardon Kostas Diamantis Corruption Trial
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former State Official and State Representative Charged With Offenses Related to Cancelled State Audit
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former State Representative Pleads Guilty to Offenses Related to Cancelled State Audit
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CT Mirror. Chris Ziogas Plea Deal, Testify Kosta Diamantis
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Connecticut News 12. Top Lamont Aide Retires After Damaging News Report
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CT Mirror. Lamont: Don’t Jump to Conclusions About Gifford Role in Nixed Audit
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Hartford Business Journal. Bristol Eye Doctor Pleads Guilty to Fraud in Medicaid Audit Case
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Hartford Courant. Former CT Budget Official Kosta Diamantis Rejects Plea Deal in Second Bribery Case
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Governor’s Office, State of Connecticut. Statement From Governor Ned Lamont
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Hartford Courant. Connecticut Auditors Slam State for Oversight of School Construction Program Run by Kosta Diamantis
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Hartford Courant. CT Lawmakers Vote to Rollback School Construction Bidding Reform