Kosta Diamantis Rejects Plea Deal, Faces Second Bribery Trial

Konstantinos Diamantis walked into federal court in Bridgeport on Monday expecting to take a plea deal. He walked out heading toward a second trial instead.

Diamantis, 69, the former state deputy budget director who was convicted last year on 21 counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and lying to federal investigators, rejected a plea agreement in his second criminal case and will instead face a jury on new charges of bribery and extortion.

The Monday hearing had been scheduled as a routine change-of-plea proceeding before Judge Stefon Underhill. Instead, Diamantis’ attorney Norm Pattis and prosecutors stepped into chambers with the judge shortly after the session began. They left the courthouse without explanation.

“We will be filing a motion to continue to trial,” Pattis said outside the courthouse. “That’s really all I can say.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Novick, asked whether the case was now moving toward trial, was only slightly more forthcoming. “That seems likely,” he said, declining to discuss details of the rejected plea offer.

A new trial date will be set after attorneys confer with the court. The original April 27 date is expected to be pushed back.

The second case centers on a different alleged scheme. Federal prosecutors say Diamantis used his position to help a Bristol eye doctor, Helen Zervas, avoid a 2020 state audit of her Medicaid and Medicare billing practices. According to the charges, Diamantis pressured Department of Social Services officials to drop the audit in exchange for nearly $100,000 in bribes.

Zervas has already pleaded guilty, as has former state Rep. Christopher Ziogas, a longtime Bristol associate of Diamantis who prosecutors say was involved in funneling the payments. Both are expected to serve as key witnesses at trial.

Some of the highest-ranking officials from Ned Lamont’s administration could be called to testify, including former Office of Policy and Management Secretary Melissa McCaw and former Department of Social Services Commissioner Diedre Gifford.

The federal investigation into Diamantis stretches back nearly five years, beginning in October 2021 with a subpoena for school construction records. That probe led to the first conviction. Diamantis had served as head of the state’s Office of School Construction Grants and Review, a position that gave him significant influence over which contractors won work on publicly funded school building projects across Connecticut.

Prosecutors in that case used text messages, bank records and emails to build a detailed picture of how Diamantis operated. They showed him negotiating payments with the owners of Acranom Masonry and threatening to pull the company from school jobs if payments were late. He was convicted of steering contracts on projects in Tolland, Hartford and New Britain in exchange for more than $75,000 in bribes. The jury found him guilty on all 21 counts.

Now, with a second trial approaching, Diamantis faces another set of federal bribery and extortion charges carrying serious prison exposure. He is already a convicted felon awaiting sentencing in the school construction case.

The decision to reject the plea deal and push toward trial is a significant gamble. Prosecutors have two cooperating witnesses in Zervas and Ziogas who have already admitted their roles in the scheme. Juries, as Diamantis knows from experience, can be persuaded by documentary evidence and cooperators who have accepted accountability and agreed to testify.

What happens at trial will also draw attention well beyond the courtroom. The case touches directly on how Connecticut’s Medicaid oversight system functioned, who had power over state audits, and whether senior administration officials were aware of any pressure being applied to DSS staff. Testimony from McCaw and Gifford, if they are called, could put the inner workings of the Lamont administration’s budget and social services offices under a federal microscope.

For now, Diamantis has made his choice. His attorneys will file a motion to schedule the trial, and a date will be set in the coming weeks. The question of whether he walks into a second conviction will be answered in a Bridgeport courtroom.