Kosta Diamantis, the former head of Connecticut's school construction grant office, was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in federal prison. He was not there to hear it. He fled to Greece before his original sentencing date and is still being sought, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
The part of the case that lands in Farmington lands Friday. Diamantis put up his Meadow Road house, his primary residence, to guarantee he would show up in court. He did not, so the judge ordered it forfeited. "At 9 a.m. Friday, title to the home will vest in the United States government, and they will own it," his lawyer, Norm Pattis, said, according to Connecticut Public.
What the government gets is a house already carrying heavy debt.
The house
Farmington's own records put a number on it. The assessor lists the property, a house on 0.61 acres, at an appraised value of $502,500 from the town's 2022 revaluation, and an assessed value of $351,750, the 70 percent of market value the town taxes. Diamantis bought it in July 2014 for $235,000, according to the assessor's sales history.
Against that, Pattis said the house carries $450,000 in mortgage and home equity debt, CT Mirror reported. Connecticut Public, reviewing Farmington land records, reported two open-end mortgages with Thomaston Savings Bank, lines of credit secured by the house, with a combined maximum of $490,000 and an unknown remaining balance. It also reported that after his indictment Diamantis borrowed $120,000 more against the house from an acquaintance, even though his bail agreement said he would not allow new claims against it.
The deed the government holds, signed in advance and kept in escrow until it was needed, transfers ownership "subject to any prior mortgages," Connecticut Public reported. The government would be one of several parties seeking money from a future sale, the station wrote, "raising questions about how much it can recover."
He pledged the same house twice: for a $500,000 appearance bond, the amount he owes if he skips court, after his 2024 arrest, and again for a second $500,000 bond in a separate federal case brought in 2025.
The judge held off enforcing the forfeiture until Friday morning, CT Mirror reported. The delay gives his family time to retrieve their belongings. Pattis said federal authorities will videotape the contents of the house.
The sentence
U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport sentenced Diamantis, 70, to 84 months, followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Prosecutors had asked for 121 to 151 months. Underhill went lower because of his age. "As bad as his crimes were, he does not deserve to be in prison for the rest of his life," the judge said, CT Mirror reported.
A federal jury convicted Diamantis in October 2025 on 21 counts: two of extortion, two of conspiracy to commit extortion, two of bribery, two of conspiracy to commit bribery and 13 of making false statements to federal agents. Prosecutors said he demanded bribes from contractors on state-funded school projects he oversaw as director of the state Office of School Construction Grants and Review, including Weaver and Bulkeley high schools in Hartford, Birch Grove Primary School in Tolland and work for New Britain. The judge will set restitution for Hartford, New Britain, Tolland and the state later.
Prosecutors said he could have been in the courtroom. A federal official waited at the Athens airport to escort him onto a flight to New York, CT Mirror reported. "He could have come back yesterday," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan N. Francis told the judge, according to CT Mirror. "All he had to do is show up."
Diamantis, a former Democratic state representative from Bristol, holds Greek citizenship, and Pattis noted that Greece generally does not extradite its own citizens.
Before the hearing, Diamantis told Connecticut Public about the house. "I used to joke with the kids saying, 'Listen, you know, the day comes when I pass away, I was going to be buried in the backyard by the shed,'" he said. "I had no intentions of ever leaving it."
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington long enough to know that most of what happens to a house here happens on paper first, in the land records. Second coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the meeting that ran late, the log nobody typed up, the land record that turns out to be the story. We publish slowly and without apology. Always last to breaking news, thorough about everything else. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰