Over and over again, municipal leaders and school construction teams said they were instructed by state officials to hire one of two contractors: AAIS Corp. of West Haven or Bestech Inc. of Ellington. The actions of Diamantis and Sanders have been under a microscope since early 2022, when news broke that a federal grand jury was investigating the school construction office. The CT Mirror reviewed more than four years’ of emails that were sent to and from Sanders, a veteran state employee who died of a drug overdose in December 2021 shortly after the state received the first subpoena from federal authorities. Those communications outline repeated efforts within the school construction office to assign contracts for local schools directly to AAIS or Bestech, both of which were on a short list of state approved hazmat companies. The documents show Sanders’ influence on school projects began in the second half of 2019, and by early 2020, he was personally selecting which company was paid to perform the demolition and abatement work on multiple schools. The records also indicate that Diamantis, who stepped down from his government office shortly after the state was subpoenaed by federal investigators, allowed Sanders to take the lead when it came to the hazmat contracts for local schools.
Emails show extent of influence on school construction projects