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February 15, 2022

Former CT budget director Diamantis’ daughter placed on paid leave

Yehyun Kim | CT Mirror Chief State’s Attorney Richard J. Colangelo, Jr., after a 2021 press conference.
By Andrew Brown, CT Mirror

Anastasia Diamantis, the daughter of former state deputy budget director Kosta Diamantis, has been placed on administrative leave following an investigation into her hiring at the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice.

A letter obtained by the CT Mirror through the state’s Freedom of Information Act shows that Anastasia Diamantis was placed on paid leave on Feb. 4, two days after state officials released a report that raised questions about how she obtained her position as an assistant with the state’s top prosecutor.

That report, which was assembled by former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy Jr., found that Richard Colangelo Jr., Connecticut’s Chief State’s Attorney, hired Anastasia Diamantis at the same time that he was pushing her father for pay increases within the Division of Criminal Justice.

Twardy’s team of investigators questioned the circumstances in which Colangelo first met Anastasia Diamantis, and the report said the explanations that Colangelo, Anastasia Diamantis and Kosta Diamantis gave to investigators were not seen as “credible.”

Anastasia Diamantis was informed in the letter on Feb. 4 that she would remain on administrative leave until the Division of Criminal Justice can fully review the allegations included in Twardy’s report.

Following that review, officials at the Division of Criminal Justice explained that she could be removed from her state job, which pays roughly $99,000 per year.

It’s unclear how long it will take for the Division of Criminal Justice to review Anastasia Diamantis’s actions and decide whether she remains on the state payroll.

Alaine Griffin, the spokeswoman for the Division of Criminal Justice, said the division did not have any further comment on the employment matter.

Anastasia Diamantis is not the only person whose job prospects have been affected by the investigation, which began last year.

Kosta Diamantis stepped down from his government job as the state’s second-highest budget official in October 2021 after Gov. Ned Lamont placed him on administrative leave.

That decision was made after Lamont’s administration was subpoenaed by a federal grant jury for records related to Kosta Diamantis and his oversight of school construction projects and the State Pier project in New London.

Colangelo, who served as a prosecutor with the Division of Criminal Justice for 29 years, also sent a letter to the state’s Criminal Justice Commission last week announcing that he would retire in order to avoid a highly publicized hearing into his alleged actions.

In that case, Colangelo maintained that he did nothing wrong by hiring Anastasia Diamantis, but he said he would step down at the end of March in order to prevent the Division of Criminal Justice from being further entangled in the “imbroglio.”

As part of his retirement, Colangelo will be eligible for two state pension plans that will pay him a combined $93,720 annually, according to state records.

A federal grand jury is also investigating how Anastasia Diamantis was hired by a construction management firm that received two no-bid state contracts in a process overseen by Kosta Diamantis.

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