Kosta Diamantis, still a fugitive, sentenced to 7 years in prison

Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis, a fugitive waging a relentless publicity campaign for a presidential pardon from overseas, was sentenced in absentia Wednesday to 84 months in prison for extorting bribes from contractors as a high-ranking state official overseeing school construction grants.

U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill imposed a sentence shorter than the range of 121 to 151 months in prison recommended by sentencing guidelines and sought by prosecutors. Diamantis was convicted on 21 counts, including conspiracy, bribery, extortion and lying to investigators.

Diamantis, 70, a divorced father of five, failed to appear at a scheduled sentencing two weeks ago in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, instead informing his lawyer he had fled to Greece, where he holds a dual citizenship that complicates efforts by authorities to locate and extradite him.

Underhill denounced Diamantis as an affront to the public he once professed to serve but said he would show a measure of mercy due to his Diamantis’ age, saying a longer sentence likely would mean death behind bars.

“As bad as his crimes were, he does not deserve to be in prison for the rest of his life,” Underhill said.

There was some uncertainty until Tuesday whether Diamantis would appear in Bridgeport. By phone, he expressed a willingness to his lawyer, Norman A. Pattis, and an FBI agent, Jen Wagner, to consider a return. A federal official waited at the Athens airport to escort him to a flight to JFK in New York.

“He could have come back yesterday,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan N. Francis told the judge, underscoring that his absence was voluntary. “All he had to do is show up.”

Diamantis has been a near-constant presence in Connecticut media since his disappearance, telling print, radio and television outlets that he is a victim of a politically “weaponized” Biden-era Department of Justice without offering evidence. He is unabashed in trying to draw the attention of President Donald Trump to his pardon application.

Diamantis has fashioned himself as a whistle-blower who objected to the state contracting for COVID-19 testing in the early days of the pandemic with a company in which a venture capital firm run by Gov. Ned Lamont’s wife, Annie, had invested. The investment was publicly disclosed at the time.

“I have maintained that the charges are not a result of an isolated legal issue but as a targeted effort of political entities, their attorneys, their spouses and aides to silence and neutralize my influence,” Diamantis said in a statement read to the court by Pattis. “If a system can be weaponized against me, it can be weaponized against anyone.”

Pattis made clear the statement was his client’s, not his.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David E. Novick, one of the two prosecutors in the case, called Diamantis unworthy of mercy, guilty of all 21 counts that went to the jury and the architect of an extraordinary campaign of “vitriolic interviews” in which he proclaims himself victim of a vast conspiracy.

“The defendant is an unrepentant disgrace,” Novick said.

Underhill did not disagree.

“Those claims in my view fall flat,” Underhill said. “Nobody conspired to have him commit these crimes.”

The judge noted that the evidence of Diamantis demanding and obtaining bribes was overwhelming, much of which was in the defendant’s own words, captured in text messages. The jury did not believe Diamantis’ testimony that the cash payments were legitimate fees, Underhill said.

“He lied on the stand, in my view,” Underhill said.

Lamont and his Republican challenger, Ryan Fazio, each expressed their dismay: Lamont at the inability of federal officials to keep Diamantis in the U.S. and Fazio at what he insisted was a lack of oversight that reflected on the governor.

“He was convicted by a jury of his peers and found guilty, and I continue to be shocked that the feds let him escape to Greece,” Lamont said. “But that said, bring him back, and he ought to serve his time.”

Fazio focused on Lamont.

“While I don’t hold him responsible wholly for one individual example, the fact is that when you’re in charge of the state government, you bear broad responsibility for what happens,” Fazio said.

With the start of his sentence indefinitely delayed by his flight, the judge had been expected to take one action Wednesday with an immediate impact: ordering the forfeiture of the heavily leveraged home in Farmington that Diamantis had posted as part of a bail package that kept him free since his conviction a year ago.

He stayed an enforcement of the forfeiture order until Friday morning, when Pattis said the federal government will assume title of a home carrying mortgage and home equity debt of $450,000. The delay gives Diamantis’ family time to retrieve personal effects.

The judge ordered further proceedings to calculate restitution owed to Hartford, New Britain, Tolland and the state of Connecticut for what prosecutors said were costs inflated on state-funded school projects in the three municipalities by Diamantis’ pay-to-play scheme.

The prosecutors, Novick and Francis, said in a memorandum filed Tuesday that the crimes committed by Diamantis are covered by the federal Mandatory Victim Restitution Act, an assertion that the defendant’s lawyer, Pattis, did not dispute in his written reply.

Pattis stated in his reply a belief that Diamantis remains in Greece and noted “that the impact of the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine may have a bearing on future proceedings in this case.” The doctrine limits the ability of fugitives to litigate claims while snubbing the authority of the courts.

One complication could be a difficulty in getting a federal appeals court to hear an appeal of his conviction, should Diamantis desire to file one. As Pattis said, the doctrine essentially closes the courthouse doors to his client.

Pattis, who has described Diamantis as broke, said computing restitution will require further review, and he asked Underhill to postpone the exercise until the other defendants in the case — officials of two companies who pleaded guilty to bribing Diamantis under duress — are sentenced.

Diamantis pushed Acranom Masonry for work on schools in Tolland and Hartford, and he pressured Hartford, New Britain and Tolland to hire Construction Advocacy Professionals to manage work that already was being done by others, prosecutors said.

Officials from both testified to paying him cash bribes.

“Both appear to have benefited from the arrangements made with Mr. Diamantis. The pleas and verdict in these cases suggest that victims may have claims for restitution as to each of the defendants,” Pattis wrote.

Prosecutors have deemed the contractors as both conspirators and victims.

“Diamantis solicited, cajoled, intimidated, and outright threatened two contractors,” the prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Diamantis was a Democratic lawmaker representing Bristol in the state House of Representatives for 14 years until losing a primary in 2006. A former House colleague hired him in 2015 during the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to oversee the Office of School Construction Grants and Review.

During Lamont’s administration, he was permitted to keep that post after Melissa McCaw, the first secretary of policy and management under Lamont, named him as her deputy in the office at the heart of state government. Its wide-ranging responsibilities included the preparation and management of the budget.

Diamantis had surrendered his U.S. passport but told the court he did not have possession of a Greek passport he had obtained since his indictment.

“Obviously, that was a lie,” Novick said in court Wednesday.

The prosecutors say Diamantis drove to Florida, took a boat to the Bahamas and flew to London. He then presumably made his way to Greece.

“The system obviously failed,” Novick said.

Greece has had a bilateral extradition treaty with the U.S. since 1931, but Pattis noted Greece generally does not extradite its citizens outside specific conditions outlined in treaties.

According to a United Nations summary of extradition laws, Greece’s Code of Penal Procedure prohibits extradition if the person “for which extradition is requested was Greek when the act was committed.” 

Diamantis, who was born in the U.S., told the Connecticut Mirror he was entitled to Greek citizenship at birth as the son of two Greek citizens. He said his mother was three months pregnant when she and his father emigrated to the U.S., and his parents had registered his birth on a visit to their old village when he was 8. 

Prosecutors offered no new disclosures about Diamantis’ escape or potential legal avenues to extradite him. Novick said the government will do everything in its power to force Diamantis’ return, but that’s a matter for another day.

CT Mirror reporter Ginny Monk contributed to this story.