Former CT legislator and deputy budget director Konstantinos Diamantis arrested
Former legislator and deputy budget director Konstantinos Diamantis, who emerged at the center of a sweeping statewide investigation two years ago of school construction practices, has been charged in a federal indictment with multiple counts of bribery, extortion and conspiracy for allegedly demanding payoffs from contractors he arranged to have hired in multi-million dollar school building projects he controlled.
When making public the 22-count indictment Thursday, federal prosecutors disclosed they have charged three others in the conspiracy, two top officers of Middlefield-based Acranom Masonry, Inc., which did foundation work on schools in Hartford and Tolland, and the owner of the Plainfield-based construction management company, Construction Advocacy Professionals, which did work on schools in Hartford, Tolland and New Britain.
Acranom President Salvatore Monarca, 53, of Durham, and Vice President John F. Duffy, 63, of Westerly, R.I., pleaded guilty earlier this week to conspiring to bribe Diamantis. Construction Advocacy Professionals owner Antonietta Roy, 41, of Plainfield also pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Diamantis. Monarca and Roy are cooperating with the government, federal prosecutors said..
The lengthy indictment describes the payoffs in detail and includes copies of long text message exchanges in which Diamantis threatens to take work away from Acranom if Monarca and Duffy don’t speed up payments to him of tens of thousands of dollars at a time when Diamantis was so broke his checkbook was over drawn by $276.68.
Duffy is Diamantis’ former brother-in-law. In text message exchanges with Monarca, in which they complain about Diamantis’ demands for money, Duffy refers to him as “Uncle.”
In addition to paying off Diamantis, Roy made payments to his daughter Anastasia, who the indictment said Diamantis insisted she hire at an inflated salary. At one point, according to the indictment, Diamantis claimed he was trying to raise money for another daughter’s tuition payments.
Over the period in which he is accused of shaking down contractors, Diamantis — a former state representative from Farmington known as Kosta — was director of the state Office of School Construction Grants and Review.
In that position, he controlled hundreds of millions of dollars of state money appropriated to finance public school construction projects in cities and towns across the state. Control of the financing and the authority to waive competitive bidding on jobs he decided were emergencies gave him the ability to dictate terms to municipal officials nominally in charge of the projects.
“The depth of deception, collusion, and abuse of power by the defendants in this case, as alleged, is glaring,” said Robert Fuller, the FBI special agent in charge of the bureau’s Connecticut operation. “The willingness to manipulate contracts and blatantly steal by abusing a position of public trust is intolerable. We have a long history in this state of rooting out corruption and delivering white collar criminals to justice. Today’s arrest further indicates that we are continuing to protect taxpayers from criminal actors.”
Gov. Ned Lamont fired Diamantis in 2021, at about the time the FBI investigation began, and on Thursday Lamont spokesperson Julia Bergman said that “since then, several reforms have been made to the program to ensure accountability and restore public trust.”
Acranom’s Hartford job involved Weaver High School in Hartford. The masonry firm got a $4 million contract for one phase of the project in the summer of 2017. But less than a year later, according to the indictment, the city’s contract manager on the Weaver job began complaining the firm was doing substandard work.
The masonry firm countered with a claim for compensation for unanticipated expenses associated with project delays. When the contract manager denied the claim and asked Acranom to repair its work, the firm reached out to Diamantis, according to the indictment, to “maximize its claim (for) compensation and minimize its repair work.”
In a text message to Monarca, Duffy wrote, “Going to be some fun … He’s going to come down on those guys big time. It’s his job and budget.”
Diamantis set up a succession of meetings and discussions between the Acranom officers and the city’s project overseers, according to the indictment. The masonry contractor agreed to repair what had been identified as substandard, but it also continued to press its claim that it was owed money.
In March 2020, “at Diamantis’ suggestion and with his support,” Hartford agreed to pay $300,000 to settle Acranom’s claim. Since the Weaver project was 95% funded by the state, Diamantis ended up paying $285,000 of the claim with money from his Office of School Construction and Grant Review, according to the indictment.
Before the dispute over compensation and substandard work was settled, Acranom bid on a successive phase of the Weaver work. Even though it was low bidder, the city’s contract manager rejected the bid because the company’s claim had not, at that time, been resolved.
In another text message exchange, Duffy assured Monarca they had nothing to worry about.
“I talked to Kosta. He said don’t worry about a thing just don’t send anything yet.”
By denying the use of state money to cover the difference between the Acranom bid and the next lowest bid, the indictment charges that Diamantis effectively forced Hartford to hire the firm for the subsequent phase of work.
According to the indictment, Diamantis continued to use his influence on behalf of his former brother-in-law’s masonry company. He arranged for them to obtain additional work, including the emergency construction of the Pine Grove Elementary School in Tolland. But at the same time, arguments began over how much he should be paid. At one point, Diamantis demanded $44,000 in a stream of consciousness text message.
“I’m asking for reasonable number being on the team had value and it’s not zero 50 is fair zero is an insult to my character for you I do 44 not penny less and tomorrow as agreed other than that tell him I am out.”
At another point, Diamantis threatened to have Acranom fired from the Tolland job unless he was paid. He demanded $62,500 in a text message.
The indictment charges that a succession of payments of several thousands of dollars each followed, but there is no clear statement of the total. The U.S. Attorney’s office would not provide a figure.
Roy’s relationship with Diamantis appears from the indictment to have been less fraught.
In March 2019, the indictment charges that he “pressured” Roy to hire his daughter at an “inflated salary.” Roy, who was just starting a construction management business, did so out of fear she would be “blackballed from the construction industry.”
A month later, Diamantis “suggested” to the municipal officials overseeing the school project in Tolland that they hire Roy as their construction administrator. Roy was initially given a $70,000 consulting contract but that was later expanded to a $460,000 deal. At the same time, Roy began making “donations” and “bonus” payments in amounts of $500 and $1,000 to Diamantis and his daughter.
Diamantis also arranged for Roy to get consulting and construction management contracts on school projects in New Britain and on a Bulkeley High School project in Hartford. Under pressure from Diamantis, Hartford agreed to hire Roy on the Bulkeley project even though the city had already hired a construction manager, according to the indictment.
The payments from Roy continued, according to the indictment.
Diamantis resigned as manager of the school construction program and was removed from a second position as deputy budget director after federal prosecutors served a sweeping grand jury subpoena on the state in October 2021 for records showing how hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent on schools and hundreds of million more on a plan to turn the state pier into an offshore wind energy hub.
One casualty of the school construction investigation was former Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo, who Lamont forced to resign. Colangelo appointed Anastasia Diamantis, then working for Roy’s firm, to a patronage position in the Division of Criminal Justice. At the same time, Colangelo was lobbying Diamantis and the state budget office to approve a raise for state prosecutors.
Colangelo’s appointment of Diamantis’ daughter became public as the federal subpoena was being served on the state and Lamont hired former U.S. Attorney Stanley L. Twardy Jr. to look into the circumstances of the patronage appointment. Anastasia Diamantis was asked by Twardy, among other things, how she came to be hired by CAP. She said she told Twardy that CAP’s owner telephoned her “out of the blue” with a job offer.
