A 70-year-old former budget director for Connecticut's Democratic governor is now a fugitive in Greece after fleeing the country by boat and plane to dodge a federal prison sentence for bribery and extortion.
Konstantinos "Kosta" Diamantis, a former Democratic state representative who later ran Connecticut's Office of School Construction Grants and Review, skipped his scheduled sentencing hearing in federal court in Bridgeport on Thursday. His defense attorney, Norman Pattis, and federal prosecutors told the judge that Diamantis had already left the country. He traveled by boat from Florida to the Bahamas, then boarded a plane to London, and from there flew to Greece, where he holds dual citizenship.
Pattis told the court he learned of the escape Wednesday night, when Diamantis called to say he was in Greece and would not be showing up. Federal prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 10 to 12 years in prison. A new sentencing hearing has been set for Sept. 30, though the defendant's chair will almost certainly remain empty.
A federal jury convicted Diamantis in October 2025 on 21 counts of bribery and extortion. The charges covered a scheme running from 2018 to 2021, during which Diamantis extorted private contractors for thousands of dollars in cash bribes. In return, he helped those companies keep and obtain work on multimillion-dollar school construction contracts, the very projects his state office was supposed to oversee on behalf of Connecticut taxpayers.
Witnesses at trial testified that they handed Diamantis envelopes of cash in the men's room of an upscale restaurant, at a doughnut shop, and at his home. Diamantis took the stand in his own defense and admitted receiving money but insisted it was legitimate consulting income. The jury rejected that claim on every count.
And the school-construction case is not even his only legal problem. Diamantis faces a second pending federal criminal case in which he is accused of taking bribes to quash a state audit of an eye doctor accused of Medicaid fraud. The status of that case remains unclear.
Diamantis had surrendered his U.S. passport, a standard condition for defendants awaiting sentencing, but he obtained a Greek passport. Neither prosecutors nor Pattis disclosed exactly when Diamantis left the United States. The route itself, boat to the Bahamas, plane to London, plane to Greece, suggests a deliberate effort to avoid direct U.S. air travel, where federal authorities could have flagged him.
Greek courts have upheld the position that extradition of Greek nationals is forbidden, AP News reported, which makes the prospect of returning Diamantis to American custody uncertain at best. Former police Detective Brian Foley told CBS affiliate WFSB-TV that federal authorities would pursue the case aggressively.
Foley told CBS News:
"When Uncle Sam gets egg on their face, they dedicate a lot of resources into finding that person. I guarantee that's already happening and he's on every fugitive list in the U.S. and overseas as well, as we should get a line on him."
The night before his sentencing, Diamantis sent a 10-page email to Pattis, copies of which the attorney provided to media outlets, in which the fugitive denied wrongdoing and accused Connecticut's Democratic governor, Ned Lamont, of weaponizing the justice system against him. Diamantis claimed Lamont used "the power of his office and his powerful friendship with President Biden to create an insular system of justice" aimed at protecting the governor's own wrongdoing. He offered no specifics about what that alleged wrongdoing was.
Diamantis wrote:
"The injustice that has occurred to me and my family by political weaponization is beyond rational belief. I have lost everything that took me an entire lifetime to earn and more. It is devastating to lose your home, your children's home, your car, your job, the ability to get a job, your law license, your honor, your dignity and pride."
He also said he hoped President Trump and the U.S. attorney's office in Washington would review his case. There is no indication that any such review is underway.
Governor Lamont condemned Diamantis in a public statement, the New York Post reported:
"Kosta Diamantis betrayed the public's trust and needs to be held accountable for his actions. His repeated efforts to skirt justice are shameful. I hope he is apprehended and made to face the music as soon as possible."
State Attorney General William Tong, also a Democrat, called the escape "a shameful insult to every person in Connecticut" and said it would not deter efforts to protect the state's interest and taxpayer dollars. Connecticut officials moved to stop Diamantis's state pension payments, a step that, if completed, would cut off a stream of taxpayer-funded income to a man who used his taxpayer-funded job to shake down contractors for cash.
Pattis, who had argued in court documents for a sentence with no prison time but strict conditions of release, told reporters outside the courthouse that Diamantis would have faced serious time behind bars.
He said:
"I think that Mr. Diamantis was facing a tough day here today and would have gotten at least four or five years, perhaps 10 to 12. So as a lawyer, I cannot support his decision to take the law into his own hands. But as a fellow human being, I understand why he did what he did."
In a separate interview with WFSB-TV, Pattis put the choice in blunter terms: "You've got two choices. Spend the next five years of your senior citizenship or your golden years asking Bubba for permission to stand in line or go to Greece."
Several questions remain unanswered. How did Diamantis obtain a Greek passport after surrendering his American one, did he already have it, or did he acquire it afterward? When exactly did he leave the country? And what legal tools, if any, can the federal government use to compel Greece to hand over one of its own citizens?
A man who spent years collecting envelopes of cash in restaurant bathrooms now sits beyond the reach of the system that convicted him. Connecticut taxpayers, who funded his salary, his pension, and the school contracts he corrupted, deserve better than a 10-page email from the Mediterranean.
