Kosta Diamantis was supposed to walk into a Bridgeport federal courtroom at 10 a.m. on Thursday to learn how many years he would serve for shaking down Connecticut school-construction contractors. Instead his own lawyer stood up and told the judge his client was in Greece.
Prosecutors laid out the route at that hearing on Thursday, September 17, 2026: Diamantis, 70, left Florida by boat the evening before, Wednesday, September 16, around 6:30 p.m., landed in Nassau, boarded a flight to London and continued on to Greece, where he holds citizenship. He had been free on a $500,000 bond. He was not wearing an ankle monitor.
Story Snapshot
- Diamantis was Gov. Ned Lamont’s deputy budget director and ran the state’s school-construction grant office. A federal jury convicted him in October 2025 on 21 counts of extortion, bribery, conspiracy and lying to the FBI.
- Prosecutors asked Judge Stefan Underhill for 10 to 12 years, citing his “greed, corruption and abject lack of integrity.”
- Hours before sentencing he sent his attorney a 10-page memo accusing Lamont and President Biden of “political weaponization,” then called to say he had left the country.
- Sentencing is now set for September 30. He faces a second corruption trial in December.
The Memo, Then The Phone Call
Attorney Norm Pattis told the court that earlier Wednesday he received what he described as a rambling 10-page memo in which Diamantis claimed his conviction was the product of a conspiracy between the governor and federal prosecutors. “The injustice that has occurred to me and my family by political weaponization is beyond rational belief,” Diamantis wrote. Then came the phone call: he was gone.
Pattis had already warned that his client faced “a catastrophic sentence of 10 to 12 years” and said an appeal was possible. Prosecutors had flagged Diamantis as a flight risk. The judge left him on bond without electronic monitoring.
What He Was Convicted Of
The jury found that Diamantis used his control of the state’s school-construction grants to extract payments and favors from contractors, and that he lied to the FBI about it. The case grew out of a wider federal probe that also touched a Connecticut Medicaid audit. He was a Democratic state representative before Lamont brought him into the budget office.
“Shocked”
Gov. Lamont said he was shocked that a convicted man awaiting a decade-long sentence was not wearing an ankle bracelet. Greece and the United States have an extradition treaty, but Greece, like most countries, is reluctant to extradite its own citizens. Diamantis holds dual U.S.-Greek citizenship.
The judge rescheduled sentencing for September 30, with or without him. If he does not return, the next step is a sentence imposed in absentia and an extradition request that could take years.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, nypost.com, ctmirror.org, ctmirror.org, apnews.com
