A federal grand jury in New Haven has returned an 18-count indictment charging Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis, 68, of Farmington, and Christopher Ziogas, 73, of Bristol, with various offenses related to the cancelling of a state audit of a Medicaid provider who engaged in healthcare fraud. As alleged in the indictment, between January and June 2020, Diamantis, while serving at Deputy Secretary of the State of Connecticut’s Office of Policy and Management (OPM), and Ziogas, who served as a State Representative for Connecticut’s 79th Assembly District, engaged in a scheme in which Diamantis solicited and received corrupt payments and benefits from Helen Zervas, an optometrist and owner of Family Eye Care in Bristol, in exchange for official acts concerning a State of Connecticut audit of Zervas’s and Family Eye Care’s Medicaid overbilling. Diamantis and Ziogas then took steps to conceal their conduct.
As part of the alleged scheme, in January 2020, an official with Connecticut’s Department of Social Services (DSS) provided notice that it would perform an audit of Zervas’s and Family Eye Care’s Medicaid billing. Zervas, who has been charged separately, knew that she had fraudulently overbilled Medicaid for medical services that she had not provided, or that were not medically necessary. Zervas sought assistance from Ziogas, who was her fiancée, to prevent the DSS audit from proceeding. Ziogas, in turn, sought help from Diamantis. In exchange for payments from Ziogas and Zervas, Diamantis undertook official acts, and pressured other state officials to undertake official acts, aimed at favorably resolving the DSS audit.