Former CT politicians who were charged with extortion and bribery: Feds

Bridgeport – The former deputy budget director Konstantino's “Kosta” Diamantis and the former MP Christopher Ziogas were charged on Friday by a federal jury of the federal government after putting other civil servants under pressure to solve a Bristol eye nurse who had an effect with fraud officers.

Diamantis and Ziogas appeared in Bridgeport on Friday and did not guilty to make the indictment against the indictment against 18, and both were released at $ 500,000 bonds, according to a joint explanation by Marc Silverman, the incumbent US lawyer for the Congicut, the FBI and the IRS.

Silverman said that Diamantis acted as deputy secretary of the State Office of Policy and Management and, from Helen Zervas, the owner of family eye care in Bristol, classified and benefited in return for actions on the state audit of the Medicaid survival of her company. Ziogas, the representative of the 79th district of Connecticut, was also involved in the program, and both took steps to hide their behavior, said officials.

Diamantis (68) and Ziogas (73) are charged with the color of official law, bribery, the conspiracy for blackmail under the color of official law and the conspiracy to inspect bribes.

This is the second time in less than a year that Diamantis is exposed to the fees of the federal states. In another legal matter, Diamantis was arrested on May 16, 2024 and was charged with blackmail, bribery, conspiracy and false statements for the FBI, everything in relation to a suspected bribery system in which prosecutors asked for bribes from governmental business for work on lucrative school building projects.

The fees presented on Friday show that in January 2020 an official of the Department of Social Services (DSS) from Connecticut sent a message that the agency would examine the Medicaid billing of Zervas and Family Eye Care. Silverman said Zervas knew that she was a fraudulent overview of Medicaid, which she was not provided or not necessary, and she asked for help from Zogas who was her fiance so as not to further develop the audit.

Ziogas then looked for help with Diamantis, said Silverman.

“In return for payments by Ziogas and Zervas, Diamanti's official laws carried out and put other state officials under pressure to take official actions to solve the DSS audit positively,” said Silverman.

Ziogas made what Silverman described on March 4, 2020 as a “bribe payment” of 20,000 US dollars for Diamantis, and on the same day, Zervas' lawyer sent a DSS official to solve the audit by e -mail. The following day, Zealz refunded Ziogas with a check from family eye care worth 25,00,000 US dollars, said Silverman.

“On March 12, 2020, Ziogas made a bribe payment of 10,000 US dollars of Diamantis and was then reimbursed by Zervas. After the DSS official was indirectly advised by OPM and DSS civil servants and put pressure on DSS, he canceled the DSS -Audit and accepted Zervas' comparison on May 1, 2020, ”said Silverman.

The indictment also claims that Diamantis and Ziogas would have transferred a check from family eye care worth 599,810 US dollars to DSS on May 12, 2020. Ziogas made a final bribery payment of $ 65,000 to Diamantis through Zealvas, said Silverman.

Diamantis and ziogas also made several false statements for the FBI for the investigation, and Diamantis said 95,000 US dollars in “corrupt payments” for his tax return from 2020, said Silverman.

“Finally, the indictment claims that Zogas, a lawyer, had committed separately bank fraud. Ziogas was the trustee of a customer confidence that was identified as “Trust-1” in the indictment. In November 2019, Ziogas negotiated a check of Trust-1 of $ 5,500 to 'Kosta Diamantis “and negotiated a check,” said Silverman.

Officials said that Diamantis had also been charged with seven cases and ziogas, in which two cases were made of false statements. Diamantic was also accused of submitting a wrong tax return, officials said. Ziogas was charged with three cases in which illegal money transactions and bank fraud were carried out, officials said.