Former state Democratic lawmaker Christopher Ziogas was indicted Friday in federal court on charges including bribery and extortion for his role in an alleged campaign to pressure state employees to cancel a 2020 audit that was reviewing a Bristol eye doctor’s Medicaid billing practices.
The state’s former deputy budget director Konstantinos Diamantis is expected to be indicted on similar charges when he appears before U.S. District Court Magistrate S. Dave Vatti in federal court in Bridgeport later this afternoon.
The indictment comes just weeks after Helen Zervas, the Bristol eye doctor and Ziogas’ fiancée, pleaded guilty to conspiring with two state officials to cancel the audit.
Ziogas, 73, pleaded not guilty and was released on $500,000 bail.
He was charged with bribery, extortion, conspiracy to commit bribery and extortion, making false statements and bank fraud.
As a requirement of his release, Ziogas must stay away from any potential witnesses. An exception was made for Zervas that would allow him to have contact with her as long as they don’t discuss the case.
If similar charges are filed against Diamantis, who held key positions in Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration, it would mark the second time in less than a year that he will have been accused of using his public office to enrich himself.
Diamantis, who ran Connecticut’s school construction office for more than six years, was charged in May 2024 with extorting several construction contractors and accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from those companies.
There were signs that Diamantis could face additional charges before this week.
Grand jury subpoenas obtained by The Connecticut Mirror last year showed federal prosecutors were investigating Diamantis’ relationship with Zervas, the owner of Family Eye Care, and examining why the state scrubbed a scheduled audit of her medical practice.
Earlier this month, Zervas pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding Medicare and Medicaid and conspiring to commit extortion.
As part of that plea, Zervas admitted that she conspired with a former state lawmaker and former high-ranking Connecticut employee to pressure officials at the state’s Medicaid agency to cancel an audit that was examining Medicaid overpayments at her optometry practice.
At that time, federal prosecutors would not identify those public officials. But the newly unsealed indictments allege that Zervas conspired with Ziogas and Diamantis.
According to the indictments, Zervas paid Diamantis a total of $95,000 in three separate payments in early 2020 so that he would apply pressure on the state employees who were auditing her office. Prosecutors allege that Ziogas served as the go-between for that transaction. Zervas admitted to cutting checks to Ziogas, and prosecutors allege that Ziogas then paid Diamantis.
When federal investigators asked Ziogas in 2022 about the payments to Diamantis, he claimed “they may have been loans,” according to the indictment.
Diamantis was Connecticut’s deputy budget director at the time, the second-highest position within the state Office of Policy and Management.
Documents obtained by the CT Mirror last year show that Diamantis helped to deliver a nearly $600,000 check to the Department of Social Services in May 2020 in order to repay the state’s Medicaid program for procedures Zervas was compensated for but never actually performed.
The records also indicate that, shortly after that check was delivered to the DSS office in Hartford, state officials took the uncharacteristic step of cancelling the audit for Zervas’ practice.
Such audits can often take months or years to complete and, in some instances, can open medical providers up to criminal charges if officials determine someone intentionally defrauded the Medicaid program.
Diamantis and Ziogas told the CT Mirror last year that there was nothing illegal about the $599,000 check they hand-delivered to state officials to cover Medicaid overpayments to Zervas’ office. And they said their involvement had nothing to do with the Medicaid audit being cancelled.
Diamantis, Ziogas and Zervas all have strong ties to the city of Bristol.
Ziogas represented Bristol in the General Assembly from 2017 to 2022. Diamantis served in the same capacity from the 1990s to the early 2000s, prior to being hired as an employee in the Department of Administrative Services and later the Office of Policy and Management.
All three individuals are closely acquainted with each other, according to statements made by Diamantis last year. Diamantis told the CT Mirror that he and Ziogas are distantly related, and he said he attended church with Zervas.
News clips show Zervas, Ziogas and Diamantis also travelled to Greece together in the late 1990s as part of a delegation from Bristol, which was seeking to foster relationships in that country.