Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. said Thursday a focus of the inquiry is the circumstances surrounding his hiring of Anastasia Diamantis, the daughter of Kostantinos “Kosta” Diamantis, one of the budget officials whom Colangelo had been lobbying for help in securing raises, recently obtained emails show. On Oct. 28, Diamantis was removed from the OPM position by the governor’s office and suspended with pay from the school construction post. Rather than accept the suspension, Diamantis retired. Antonietta DiBenedetto-Roy, the owner of the construction management company, said Diamantis had worked for her on projects in Rhode Island, in part to avoid any potential conflict with her father’s role in overseeing construction grants. Emails show, however, that at least on a few occasions, the younger Diamantis helped the company with documentation on a Connecticut project. But Anastasia Diamantis was copied on an exchange of emails between her father and DiBenedetto-Roy regarding state documentation on the Birch Grove Primary School project in Tolland in July 2019, a project fast-tracked to replace a school with a crumbling foundation undermined by pyrrhotite, a mineral that expands when exposed to moisture. Her father said he could not recall why he copied her.
https://www.theday.com/statenortheast-news/20211203/inquiry-underway-over-top-prosecutorx2019s-hiring-of-opm-officialx2019s-daughter