The judge showed up. So did the prosecutors and the defense lawyer. The defendant was in northern Greece, nearly 5,000 miles from the courtroom. Konstantinos Diamantis, once the chief of Connecticut's school-construction office, skipped his own sentencing in Bridgeport. “This is the first time I've gone to a sentencing with an empty chair,” his lawyer, Norman Pattis, told reporters. Joshua Chaffin tells the story in the Journal.
A jury convicted Diamantis last year on 21 counts of extortion, bribery, conspiracy and lying to the FBI. He fled before his mid-September sentencing date. The route, as federal authorities describe it, ran through Florida, then by boat to the Bahamas, then by air through London to Athens. They think he used a Greek passport he was supposed to have given up. He says he reached Greece without one. He's staying at a friend's apartment, he says, calling a Connecticut radio show and talking to hometown reporters. He has an eight-page letter that says he's innocent, and he hopes for a pardon from President Trump. A White House official said the office that reviews such requests isn't tracking his and hadn't heard of him.
The case came out of a school. In 2019 the town of Tolland found faulty concrete at Birch Grove Primary School and had to rebuild fast. The project ran to roughly $45 million, and the town needed state money, says Tammy Nuccio, who led the town council then. Diamantis ran the state office that reviewed those grants. One firm hired his daughter and soon after collected more than $500,000 in contracts on the school. He had urged the town to hire it, and prosecutors said the work wasn't needed at all. The masonry contractor, whose vice president was his former brother-in-law, won a contract of more than $2.5 million. Prosecutors said that came despite complaints about its work on another school. One text message shown at trial had him saying he usually works at 5% of the total. Three people pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe him. On the stand, he called the payments consulting fees. The verdict came in a little over a day.
The sentence, and the pension
Judge Stefan Underhill said Diamantis lied on the stand and called the evidence overwhelming. He gave him seven years, short of the 10-plus prosecutors wanted. Diamantis texted from Greece that for a 70-year-old it amounts to a life sentence, and he still says he's innocent. Running has a price beyond that. His flight may have cost him his right to appeal. Connecticut's attorney general is working to strip him of his pension. The federal government could end up owning his house. His dual citizenship makes extradition harder, so this could take a while. The school, meanwhile, is open. Nuccio, who tangled with him over it, calls it a great little school.
Our read
This is Retirement (M10), with a Consumer Protection note. Readers who work for a school district or a city often count the pension as their safest asset. It usually is. But a pension is a contract, and a contract has conditions. Many public plans have rules that let the state cut or cancel a pension after a felony tied to the job. The details differ by state and by plan. Connecticut is trying to use its rules now, and the paper says the federal government could end up with the house. For a career public employee, the pension can be the largest number on the balance sheet. It's worth knowing exactly what can take it away.
You don't have to be a crook to care about the fine print. The same plan document covers the ordinary cases. What happens to the pension in a divorce. What a survivor gets, and which box you had to check for that. What a mid-career move to another state does to your years. Read it once while nothing is wrong. Keep a copy with your other papers. A promise with conditions is still a promise, but you want to know the conditions on a calm day, before the sky changes.