A pair of local officials and a construction supervisor testified on Thursday that Konstantinos Diamantis, the former head of Connecticut’s school building program, directly intervened on several projects in Tolland and Hartford to assist two contractors who have admitted to paying him bribes.
The testimony, which was delivered during the fourth day of Diamantis’ ongoing criminal trial, was meant to button up federal prosecutors’ claims that Diamantis solicited bribes from contractors in return for steering millions of dollars in work on local school projects to those firms.
The prosecution’s three witnesses on Thursday testified in rapid fashion, and all of the testimony focused on a singular theme: Diamantis instructing local officials to hire specific firms.
The jurors first heard Walter Willett, Tolland’s school superintendent, describe how Diamantis told Tolland officials to hire Construction Advocacy Professionals to oversee construction on the Birch Grove Elementary project.
Then came Melvyn Colon, the chairman of Hartford’s School Building Committee, who explained to jurors how Diamantis instructed the city to hire Construction Advocacy Professionals to help with the Bulkeley High School Project.
And finally, the jurors heard Jack Butkus, a project manager with ARCADIS, who said Diamantis threatened to withhold state money from the Weaver High School project in Hartford unless the city re-hired Acranom Masonry for a $3 million contract.
All three witnesses said they did not feel like they could challenge Diamantis’ hiring preferences because of the immense control he had over state funding for schools.
“I didn’t feel like I had any practical choice,” Willett told prosecutors.
“We were between a rock and a hard place,” Butkus added.
And Colon emphasized that Diamantis had a “forceful and prickly personality.”
Two executives with Acranom and Construction Advocacy Professionals told the jury earlier this week that they provided Diamantis with bribes, in the form of cash, checks and a job for his daughter.
But the testimony from Willett, Colon and Butkus was meant to show what the two contractors got in return.
Diamantis’ defense attorney, Norm Pattis, used his cross examination of the witnesses to raise doubts about whether Diamantis was acting corruptly and to suggest that he was simply doing his job.
On the Birch Grove Elementary project, Pattis argued that Diamantis hand-picked contractors for that project because he needed to act quickly to rebuild the crumbling foundation in that school.
And in Hartford, Pattis argued that Diamantis wanted Construction Advocacy Professionals selected for the Bulkeley project because it was a woman-owned business.
“There’s nothing wrong with hiring a woman, is there?” Pattis asked at one point.
Justifications
Colon told the jury that Diamantis discussed hiring Construction Advocacy Professionals on the Bulkeley High School project before Hartford ever solicited bids for that job.
And he said that Construction Advocacy Professionals was eventually picked for that role even though other companies offered to do the work for less money.
The federal prosecutors also showed the jury an email in which Colon told other Hartford officials that Diamantis was “willing to pay extra to get his person on board.” Colon confirmed that “person” was Antonietta DiBenedetto Roy, the owner of Construction Advocacy Professionals.
During that testimony, Diamantis leaned forward in his seat to view the email on a computer monitor in front of him.
When the Hartford school building committee eventually hired Construction Advocacy Professionals in 2019, Colon said, they tried to justify their decision by pointing out the company’s status as a woman-owned business.
But he said the company was actually selected solely because of Diamantis.
During cross examination, Pattis tried to pick apart Colon’s testimony, but the defense attorney didn’t always get the answers that he was looking for.
At one point, Pattis asked if it was normal for the Hartford school building committee to lie about why they were hiring a specific company.
Colon said it was not normal, and that he lied in the case of CAP because Diamantis’ demand to hire the company was not a legitimate reason to pass over other qualified businesses.