The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
State’s top prosecutor denies wrongdoing amid hiring probe
Connecticut’s top prosecutor has denied accusations of wrongdoing as an investigation continues into whether he hired the daughter of a former key state budget official to get his deputies raises as a way to shore up support for his reappointment.
Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. is under investigation for the hiring as emails have surfaced that he sent to Konstantinos Diamantis, a former top state budget official who has since retired, seeking raises for prosecutors with supervisory roles within his office, according to documents obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media Group.
Around the time the emails were sent, Colangelo hired Diamantis’ daughter, Anastasia, for a $99,000 administrative job in his office, the documents show.
Gov. Ned Lamont ordered the investigation late last year amid questions about whether the hire was related to Colangelo’s efforts to seek adjustments to the salary structure for his top prosecutors.
Colangelo and Konstantinos Diamantis, known as Kosta, have denied there was any coordination between their offices in the hiring.
Kosta Diamantis retired last fall from his position as deputy secretary of the governor’s budget office, known as the Office of Policy and Management, after Lamont placed him on paid leave over an unspecified allegation of misconduct.
Lamont’s office did not respond to questions about where the investigation stands.
In a recent interview, Kosta Diamantis said he immediately regretted submitting his retirement and tried to rescind the move — but said he was turned down.
Lamont’s office did not respond about why Diamantis’ request to rescind his retirement was rejected.
The issue over pay for state’s attorneys — the top-level prosecutors who oversee regional offices — stems in part from a change years ago when they were not compensated for switching from 35 hours a week to 40 hours. For that and other reasons, Colangelo’s office said, some state’s attorneys earn less than the prosecutors they supervise.
An email to Diamantis on Dec. 4, 2020, was part of a long effort by Colangelo to raise the pay of those state’s attorneys.
“Might need it to keep them happy so they don’t oppose me at reappointment,” Colangelo wrote in the email obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media through a public records request.
That email was first reported by blogger and Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie.
Alaine Griffin, a spokesperson for the chief state’s attorney’s office at the Division of Criminal Justice, declined Hearst Connecticut Media’s request for an interview with Colangelo about his remarks.
Griffin instead provided written responses to Hearst Connecticut’s questions. She stated Colangelo’s “principal motivation to get the pay plan correction is to fix an inequity so the Division can get top candidates for the State’s Attorneys posts . ... Since his appointment, Chief State’s Attorney Colangelo has been steadfast in his commitment to correcting this inequity and will continue to work to correct it.”
Griffin did not directly address Colangelo’s email to Kosta Diamantis.
“Advocating for members of the Division is part of his job as chief executive,” Griffin said.
Colangelo offered an explanation of the Dec. 4 email, telling the Hartford Courant last week that he meant the comment as a joke.
“It was tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to get someone’s attention,” Colangelo said.
Griffin said Colangelo regretted sending the email, but declined to elaborate further.
A spokesperson for Lamont’s office declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation into Colangelo’s office.
Seeking raises
Emails released by his office show that Colangelo began lobbying to adjust the salary scale for his top staff soon after he was appointed in January 2020 to serve the remainder of the retiring Kevin Kane’s five-year term.
OPM denied the pay increases at least twice, according to a spokesperson. The first occurred in a May 2020 letter from Diamantis and a second time by OPM Secretary Melissa McCaw last February.
Diamantis pointed to the salary structure not being approved as evidence that the hiring of his daughter was not connected with Colangelo’s crusade.
Colangelo’s requested changes would have resulted in salary increases and other benefits, such as lifting the cap on longevity pay for more than a dozen senior attorneys in his office.
In emails to officials in the governor’s office and OPM, Colangelo explained why the pay increases were needed, such as helping with the recruitment of qualified attorneys and giving senior attorneys more competitive pay when compared to rankand-file prosecutors in unionized positions.
On April 16, 2020, Lamont’s then-chief legal counsel, Bob Clark, directed Colangelo in an email to bring the salary increase proposal to McCaw of OPM.
“I’ll leave it to you to decide the wisdom of the timing of any such requests,” Clark wrote.
Four days later, Colangelo emailed Diamantis — who had moved to OPM from the state Department of Administrative Services in 2019, taking many of his duties with him — laying out a series of arguments in favor of the pay raises.
In that email, Colangelo said he believed the current pay scale had led to fewer applicants for openings in the state’s attorneys offices, including just five applicants for a position in the Stamford/Norwalk office, where he previously served as the top prosecutor.
About a month later amid the height of the early pandemic, Colangelo received a response from the OPM undersecretary for labor relations, Sandra Brown-Brewton, informing him that due to the “state’s current economic situation,” the request for salary increases would not be approved.
Colangelo continued to press the issue, emailing Diamantis, Brown-Brewton and McCaw over the next several months with details about his agency’s pay scales and requests to discuss the issue further.
Diamantis’ daughter joins criminal justice division
In June 2020 — while still seeking approval for the salary increases through OPM — Colangelo hired Anastasia Diamantis as an executive assistant at a salary of $99,000, according to records provided by his office.
At the time, Anastasia Diamantis was working for the state as a disability claims examiner, according to her resume.
When asked about the hiring, Kosta Diamantis and Griffin pointed to a provision in state law allowing the division to hire up to four executive assistants without approval from OPM. Employees in the Division of Criminal Justice are exempt from the classified service, which carries stricter hiring rules.
Colangelo’s office defended the hire, noting Anastasia Diamantis’ previous experience working at an executive branch agency. She continues to work at the office as an executive assistant.
“She possesses work skills and an education that make her an ideal fit for the job that requires her to be a utility player on the management team, addressing administrative, training and cross operational duties, balancing competing interests and shifting deadlines,” Griffin said in an email.
Anastasia Diamantis could not be reached for comment.
In an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media, Kosta Diamantis said he did not view Colangelo’s decision to hire his daughter as a way to influence his review of the requested salary increases. He noted that he and his bosses denied the requests both before and after his daughter joined Colangelo’s office.
“Mr. Colangelo has been a state’s attorney with an impeccable record. The absurdity to think that he was going to ruin his character, his career, over something like that is absolutely ridiculous,” Diamantis said.
Email records provided by Colangelo’s office show that Diamantis never responded to Colangelo’s email in which he floated the possible benefits to his reappointment efforts should he get approval for the pay increases. Diamantis said he did not recall receiving the email.
Colangelo was reappointed to a full five-year term by the state’s Criminal Justice Commission in June 2021.
State investigation
Within a month of news surfacing about his daughter’s hiring, Kosta Diamantis resigned amid his suspension.
“I wasn’t going to sit there and collect a paycheck from the very taxpayers I spent my time protecting, so that’s why,” Diamantis said. “Then I realized that under the rules that when you retire, if you retire, you really can’t defend yourself, you’re not entitled to that process, so to speak, I guess.”
Diamantis said he quickly tried to rescind his resignation, but the request was denied.
In December, the Lamont administration hired former U.S. Attorney Stanley A. Twardy and two other lawyers with the Day Pitney law firm to conduct the inquiry into the hiring of Anastasia Diamantis.